CHICAGO—Union representatives in Chicago are denouncing the Trump administration’s gutting of a health agency that helps keep workers safe nationwide.
President Donald Trump’s administration recently laid off about 850 of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s 1,000 employees. The layoffs have negatively impacted NIOSH programs, such as a firefighter cancer registry and a lab that certifies respirators. NIOSH is a part of the National Institutes of Health.
On April 21, the SEIU Healthcare in Chicago hosted a public discussion featuring several union representatives on how gutting NIOSH will impact not only workers in their respective industries but the wider public as well.
“The job these workers perform impacts workplaces everywhere. Their job is to keep us all safe,” said James Connolly, the second vice president of the Chicago Federation of Labor.
“If we start rolling back science and the responsibilities that NIOSH has, if we take away critical research from NIOSH, we handcuff OSHA, those are people’s lives,” Connolly said. “They’re either their lives right now, or they’re lurking dangers that we’re not looking to create solutions for going forward.”
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond opened the session by stressing the importance of putting “a human face” to job cuts with these public discussions.
“It’s workers who wake this country up every morning and tuck this country to sleep at night. And we run programs and services with dedication and pride,” Redmond said.
Telling their story
“It’s important that workers tell their story to put a human face to the cuts and explain the work we do. These haphazard cuts, unthought of cuts, cuts that have not been vetted, cuts that have not been thought through, how these cuts reach far beyond the individual workers and their families, but ripple out and hit every sector of our society,” Redmond said.
The public discussion included union leaders representing firefighters, construction workers, nurses, and more.
Patrick Cleary, the president of the Chicago Fire Fighters Union Local 2, encouraged people to contact their legislators and demand that NIOSH workers and their programs be reinstated.
Cleary said NIOSH has conducted studies to better understand how long firefighters can battle a fire while wearing certain personal protection equipment (PPE) without “baking” or “suffocating” as a result.
“These are very important programs that we use. When we want to change our gear, we use these studies to prove that what we’re saying is correct,” Cleary said.
Along with their concerns about NIOSH layoffs, speakers also voiced support for the work done by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
OSHA offices have come into the crosshairs of the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) cuts in federal spending. DOGE recently announced it will close 11 OSHA field offices, including one in an area of Louisiana filled with fossil fuel and petrochemical plants nicknamed “Cancer Alley” for its impacts on workers and nearby residents.
DOGE is an initiative from President Trump to cut federal spending characterized as “waste, fraud, and abuse.” It is headed by Elon Musk, the richest man on earth and a senior advisor to the president.
“I like efficiency as [much] as the next person. Who doesn’t?” said Carlos Ginard, the assistant manager of the Chicago and Midwest Regional Joint Board of Workers United, a Service Employees sector.
“Instead of simply streamlining processes, the changes we are seeing have led to significant cuts to the federal workforce and vital support programs that many Workers United union members rely on,” Ginard said.
“If something happens to firefighters, that directly affects my members, immediately,” Ginard said. “With NIOSH and OSHA, all of our factories are safe because of the work you guys do. Capitalism does not like safety, it’s too costly.”
Ginard’s sentiment that “capitalism does not like safety” was echoed by Anne Igoe, the director of the hospital division for SEIU Healthcare Illinois.
Igoe highlighted the importance of NIOSH in that, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “the likelihood of injury or illness resulting in days away from work is higher in hospitals than in construction or manufacturing.”
Igoe said “chronic short staffing has worsened” this issue, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Hospital Health System leaders learned the wrong lesson during the pandemic, that they can further maximize profits when they cut staffing,” Igoe said. “The lesson they learned during the pandemic is that when they had fewer healthcare workers, when it was harder to get healthcare workers, they saw profits.”
Shortly after the discussion ended, Fred Redmond sat down with People’s World for an interview. Along with collecting “testimony” from workers impacted by NIOSH cuts, Redmond told People’s World he made plans to travel to Davenport, Iowa, to speak with workers about the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
“We are in uncharted waters. We’re at a place in this country where we have never been. This is the promotion of white supremacy to its highest levels,” Redmond said of the Trump administration’s immigration policies, specifically in regard to the deportation of SMART union member Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
In his closing remarks, Redmond emphasized the importance of uniting working-class Americans regardless of political affiliation.
“Forget about your political party, whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican. This is about right versus wrong,” Redmond said.
“We have to hold America to its promise,” Redmond said. “And we have to be willing to do whatever we need to do to make sure that we don’t witness, in our lifetime, the destruction of democracy and the remaking of America [to] a country for billionaires by the billionaires. So that’s our mission, to uphold the integrity of this country.”
The community discussion was organized as part of Chicago Jobs with Justice’s “Civil Servants Speak Out!” series.
To learn more about events organized by Chicago Jobs with Justice, visit their website. Prior “Civil Servants Speak Out!” events are available on their YouTube page.
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