Over 100 federal employees who make screening on coal miners for silicosis and seek other respiratory diseases, fired as part of a vast operation of layoffs by the government, have re -teenaged the workplace indefinitely, announced on Tuesday the republican senator of western Virginia Shelley Moore understood.
Understood he declared in a statement that he had received insurance from the Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. that the Department of Health and Human Services has revoked the layoffs of the employees of the National Institute for Safety and Health at the work of Morgantown, in West Virginia.
“From what I understood by secretary Kennedy, over 100 Morgantown employees will return to work permanently,” he said in a declaration.
The Niosh manages a health surveillance unit in the coal mines that had actually been closed since February due to the mass layoffs led by the Department for Government Efficiency of the billionaire Elon Musk, despite the recovery of the deadly black lung disease that has affected at least one in five and more and more workers of just 30 years.
Reuters had reported that these potential job cuts, together with those at the Mine Health Safety Administration, were putting coal miners at risk, despite President Donald Trump had asked for a revival of the sector.
The situation of Niosh’s workers was evolving: some had been recalled by the administrative leave at the beginning of this month, only to be informed a few days after they had been definitively fired.
Understood he said he had several conversations with Kennedy by exhorting him to save the program.
A letter sent to Niosh employees today by its director, John Howard, and viewed by Reuters, states that some of the previously fired employees who have been recalled include the staff of some selected units of the Director of the Niosh Director, the division for respiratory health that includes the coal mines surveillance unit, the national laboratory for individual protection technologies, the division for security and safety research Division for support for compensation and analysis (Deca).
Twenty -one of the 28 employees of the Deca, who deal with the requests for compensation of former centers with cancer nuclear weapons, were referred to, according to Reuters reported by two sources informed of the facts.
It is not clear which percentage of Niosh employees has been called back. Over 90% of Niosh employees had been informed of the dismissal at the beginning of this month.
Wednesday Kennedy will testify to the congress, where he will probably have to answer questions about mass layoffs at the HHS.
