US health department to reverse federal layoffs of coal safety workers, senator says
By Valerie Volcovici
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Over 100 federal employees who screen coal miners for black lung disease and research other respiratory disease who had been terminated as part of sweeping government layoffs have had their jobs restored permanently, West Virginia Republican Senator Shelley Moore Capito announced on Tuesday.
Capito said in a statement she got an assurance from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. that the Department of Health and Human Services reversed the terminations of employees at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health facility in Morgantown, West Virginia.
"My understanding from Secretary Kennedy is that over 100 Morgantown employees will be returning to the job permanently," she said in a statement.
NIOSH runs a coal mine health surveillance unit that had effectively been shuttered since February amid sweeping layoffs led by billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, even as a resurgence of deadly black lung disease has affected at least one out of five coal miners - and increasingly workers as young as their 30s.
Reuters had reported that those potential job cuts, as well as cuts at the Mine Health Safety Administration, were putting coal miners at risk, even as President Donald Trump called for a revival of the industry.
The status of NIOSH workers had been in flux, with some workers brought out of administrative leave earlier this month, only to be notified days later that they were permanently terminated.
Capito said she had several conversations with Kennedy urging him to save the program.
A letter seen by Reuters that was sent to NIOSH employees today from its director, John Howard, said that some previously terminated employees who were called back include staff from selected units in the NIOSH director's office, the Respiratory Health Division that includes the coal mine surveillance unit; the National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory; the Division of Safety Research and the Division of Compensation and Analysis Support (DECA).
Twenty-one of the 28 staffers of DECA, who work on compensation claims of former nuclear weapons workers that have cancer, were among those brought back, two sources familiar with the news told Reuters.
It is unclear what percentage of NIOSH employees have been recalled. Over 90% of NIOSH employees had been notified of termination earlier this month.
Kennedy will testify before Congress on Wednesday, where he is likely to face questions about mass layoffs at HHS.
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