US health department to reverse federal layoffs of coal safety workers, senator says

By Valerie Volcovici

WASHINGTON, May 13 (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.

They comprise a large percentage of the 313 workers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health that were notified that their layoff notices were rescinded, according to an internal email sent by the Department of Health and Human Services to employees on Wednesday seen by Reuters.

NIOSH had nearly 1,500 full-time workers in eight offices around the United States .

Capito said in a statement that she got an assurance from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that the HHS had reversed the terminations of employees at the NIOSH 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 in their 30s.

Reuters had reported that those potential job cuts, as well as cuts at the Mine Health Safety Administration, were putting miners at risk, even as President Donald Trump called for a revival of the coal 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 coal workers' surveillance program.

Despite the return to full-time work of some NIOSH employees, the agency plans to proceed with most of its planned layoffs, according to internal emails seen by Reuters.

Another letter seen by Reuters that was sent to NIOSH employees on Tuesday 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.

It also includes 15 full-time employees of the World Trade Center Health Program, which provides support to 9/11 first responders stricken by illness.

It also includes 18 of 28 staffers of DECA, who work on compensation claims of former nuclear weapons workers that have cancer, who were among those brought back, two sources familiar with the news told Reuters.

Kennedy will testify before Congress on Wednesday, where he is likely to face questions about mass layoffs at HHS.