'You can't fire 90% of the people and assume the work gets done': Sen. Murray questions RFK Jr. over Spokane mine safety lab cuts
May 14—Federal research on mine safety will continue despite job cuts, including at a facility in Spokane, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said at a Senate hearing Wednesday.
Sen. Patty Murray, a senior member and former chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, asked Kennedy why some workers are being reinstated at a laboratory in Morgantown, West Virginia, but none at the Spokane Research Laboratory, which covers the western United States.
"I am really alarmed by your decision to essentially eliminate the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health," Murray said. "You've already fired nearly 90% of the staff. That includes the staff in my state, at the Spokane research lab. Those are experts. They do essential work to protect miners and firefighters and farmworkers, people who work in dangerous conditions."
The Spokane Research Laboratory at 315 E. Montgomery Avenue in the Logan neighborhood studies hard rock mining (as opposed to coal mining) and other occupations relevant to western states, including wildland firefighting.
The department notified the lab's union at the end of March that essentially all of the 90 or so workers will be fired by the end of June. Kennedy previously announced NIOSH will be consolidated into the new "Administration for a Healthy America" for better efficiency.
"There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to how you've made these decisions," Murray said. "How do you explain this to my constituents in Spokane who are out of a job, and the workers that are being impacted by that?"
Kennedy insisted the work at NIOSH will not be interrupted, but did not specifically address the work done in Spokane.
"I brought back 328 workers, mainly in the Cleveland office and the Morgantown office and for the World Trade Center site, and that work will continue," Kennedy said. "The work on mine safety will continue. The epicenter of that work has been Cleveland and has been Morgantown. We understand it's a critically important function, and I did not want to see it end."
Reuters reported Wednesday the number of workers brought back as 313. The other lab is in Cincinnati, not Cleveland.
"I would just say you can't fire 90% of the people and assume the work gets done," Murray said.
James Hanlon's reporting for The Spokesman-Review is funded in part by Report for America and by members of the Spokane community. This story can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper's managing editor.
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