Labor unions say layoffs on the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) and the Nationwide Institute for Occupational Security and Well being (NIOSH) are threatening science at the same time as some workers get their jobs again.
In an announcement launched Friday, the American Federation of Authorities Staff (AFGE) mentioned the layoffs on the Division of Well being and Human Companies (HHS) “gut frontline science and shut down life-saving public health programs.”
Whereas some staffers are being introduced again, the union known as this transfer a “false choice.”
“The layoffs are not targeting inefficiency, they are targeting science,” mentioned Yolanda Jacobs, president of AFGE Native 2883. “Public well being researchers and frontline scientists are being thrown out of their jobs whereas the nation faces rising environmental, occupational, and public well being crises.”
Earlier this week, roughly 300 NIOSH workers had been rehired by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In a funds listening to earlier than the Home Appropriations Committee, Kennedy assured Rep. Riley Moore (R-W.Va), whose district was impacted by the layoffs, that key NIOSH applications would proceed.
Some NIOSH workers in Cincinnati and the World Commerce Heart had been additionally rehired.
The AFGE is looking the rehirings a “zero-sum game” as a result of HHS apparently informed workers that an equal variety of CDC staffers can be minimize to “offset” the choice.
The layoffs encompassed 10,000 workers who had been fired and 10,000 extra who selected the Trump administration’s “fork in the road” deferred resignation supply. In accordance with the AFGE, greater than 1,500 CDC workers and 90 % of NIOSH staffers had been focused by the HHS Discount in Power.
Regardless of what Kennedy informed lawmakers this week, the AFGE acknowledged many NIOSH applications stay defunded or disrupted together with these that concentrate on “toxicology research, chemical hazard risk assessment, and surveillance of high-risk industries.”
The union is demanding that every one laid off workers be restored and that every one program funding be refunded. It additionally desires an finish to retaliatory or offsetting layoffs; and direct engagement with union management previous to any forthcoming restructuring.
The Hill has reached out to HHS for remark.
