NIOSH employees head to Charleston to advocate for change
CLARKSBURG, W.Va. (WBOY) — After the layoffs at its Morgantown office earlier this week, employees of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), as well as other federal agencies, went to Charleston on Thursday seeking help from the West Virginia Legislature.
Anita Wolfe was head of the coal workers' health surveillance program within NIOSH for 20 years before her retirement. Although she wasn't affected by the recent layoffs, she still feels pain for her former employees and for the agency she devoted years of work to.
'All of these people that were taking their belongings from their desks to their cars yesterday are people too, and their lives have been completely turned upside down in the blink of an eye,' Wolfe said.
NIOSH layoffs to have direct effects on coal miners
After receiving phone calls the day NIOSH employees were laid off, a plan was made with Wolfe and other federal employees to head to the state legislature with the hopes of understanding and answers.
Wolfe mentioned that there was so much research and work within NIOSH for everyday use items like respirators, which will no longer receive the attention deserved, with no other program put into place to mandate their safety.
'Those respirators were used during COVID. They're used by guys out here working on the roads. Some of them are used by coal miners. Even if you paint your house sometimes, maybe you put a respirator on that's NIOSH approved—that's gone,' said Wolfe.
With the lack of safety regulations for the American workforce, Wolfe mentioned her fear of what is to come for positions like coal miners and firefighters.
After the cuts in Mylan-Pharmaceuticals, West Virginia University and NIOSH, places like Morgantown are likely to feel the economic impacts directly, though Wolfe believes that there's still a fighting chance.
'I know that some people that I've talked to have just given up and they're just like 'look, it's not going to be reversed, there's no way it's going to be reversed, I just got to look for a job.' and others are kind of like me, we're going to go down fighting, we're going to go down screaming to the top of our lungs that this was unfair,' Wolfe said.
Stick with 12 News for the latest information on NIOSH layoffs.
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