MAKE A CALL: Tell Congress to Stop the Cuts to NIOSH in Washington and beyond!
You’ve probably never heard of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, or NIOSH—but this federal agency plays a critical role in keeping America’s workers safe.
And last week, Elon Musk and the DOGE gutted it.
More than one thousand workers in six states and Washington, D.C.—including Washington—have lost their jobs at the federal job safety research agency. Every single NIOSH research center is being closed, and the few staff remaining no longer have the resources to do their jobs.
Congress created NIOSH on a broad, bipartisan basis during the Nixon administration, and workers and employers throughout the world rely on NIOSH’s research and recommendations.
NIOSH conducted key research for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) so that we could have regulations on asbestos, cotton dust, lead, bloodborne pathogens, silica and black lung, which have saved hundreds of thousands of workers’ lives.
The agency researches worker exposures to heat and wildfire smoke, workplace violence, back injuries and other chronic diseases, and state-of-the-art technologies that keep workers safe in mines. It also approves all respirators and combats fraud from imported counterfeit products.
This agency even oversees the World Trade Center Health Program to provide 9/11 responders and survivors with medical monitoring and treatment, and a program to compensate energy workers exposed to deadly hazards from manufacturing, testing and cleaning up nuclear weapons.
The DOGE cuts to NIOSH are making workplaces more dangerous. MSHA announced this week it is pausing the implementation of a new rule to protect mineworkers from deadly silica dust exposure because of “the unforeseen NIOSH restructuring.” Make no mistake: the DOGE’s actions will jeopardize the safety of all American workers.
Our message to Congress is simple: Stop the cuts to NIOSH and reinstate the workers.
Right now each year, more than 5,000 workers die from job injuries and 135,000 workers die from chronic occupational diseases. Millions more workers are injured. America’s working families need NIOSH to make jobs safer and keep workers healthier.
Thank you for speaking out for worker safety.
Kenneth Quinnell
Mon, 04/14/2025 – 13:04