DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — For decades, workers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health have gone to work, trying to make workplaces safer.
“NIOSH is the only agency that looks at workers’ health, the only one in the country. Extremely important work with long-term consequences,” Kyle Steenland, an Emory professor and former NIOSH employee, told Channel 2’s Michael Doudna.
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The agency, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has helped identify dangerous chemicals and worked to make jobs safer.
However, in April, approximately 90 percent of the employees learned they were being terminated.
“I mean, it was discouraging, disheartening,” Nicholas Coombs said.
“I’ve been here since 2001, and to just have my career taken from me has been very painful,” Constance Franklin said.
Health and Human Services recently decided to rehire more than 300 workers in the department, but the total cut to NIOSH is more than 50 percent.
Coombs and Franklin, along with another coworker, Anita Jones, are all on administrative leave and are set to be terminated on June 2. They worry what this could mean for workers across the country.
“If all of NIOSH isn’t restored, that is going to lead to more injuries in the workplace,” Jones said.
“I agree with DOGE’s notion of improving the ineffective and inefficient ways in which our federal governing bodies operate. But man, if you just take everything away and don’t evaluate what you need to evaluate to improve it, you’re not doing yourself any favors,” Coombs said.
However, some Georgians are supportive of the cuts and see them as a way to streamline departments.
“I don’t think that we’re going to see ... a reduction in the ability of the CDC to do its mission right,” Georgia Republican Chairman Josh McKoon said.
McKoon says cuts to the CDC and other programs are needed to help right-size a government that is trillions of dollars in debt.
“We are spending too much money. We have a structural deficit in this country that’s unsustainable,” McKoon said.
However, those with NIOSH say the cuts have not been targeted enough and will put workers everywhere at risk.
“It harms the American workplace, it harms the American industry, it no longer puts protections in place for if and when the other shoe drops,” Coombs said.
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