A certification was entered in federal court this week proving that at least 50 employees at the National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety’s Respiratory Health Division have had their terminations rescinded, meeting requirements set in a court order last month.
Those returning to work include “most” employees who worked within the RHD before April 1, which is when reduction in force notices were issued throughout multiple NIOSH divisions as a result of the new federal Department of Government Efficiency’s cost-saving measures.
Many of those workers were slated to be terminated on Monday, the same day NIOSH director John J. Howard signed and filed the certification in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia.
The certification was entered to meet requirements in a preliminary injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Irene Berger last month. That injunction came from a class action lawsuit filed on April 7 against the federal government and led by Harry Wiley, a Raleigh County coal miner.
In May, Wiley’s attorneys argued in a hearing that the closure of the CWHSP by DOGE meant responsibilities mandated by congress for coal worker health and safety were illegally going undone, robbing Wiley and other coal miners of their hard-fought rights. The federal government argued that the stoppage at the [CDC’s Coal Workers’ Health Surveillance Program (CWHSP)] and other NIOSH divisions was only temporary as the federal Department of Health and Human Services worked through a “reorganization.”
Berger ruled in favor of Wiley and the other coal miners.
[T]he resurgence of black lung is hitting coal miners at younger ages than ever before. This is due to miners, because of a lack of easily accessible coal, being forced to dig through more silica-rich sandstone than their predecessors in order to reach what little coal remains.
Several of the services that are now going undone at NIOSH as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are congressionally mandated through the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970.
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