By Lulit Shewan

The Trump Administration has issued dozens of executive orders to roll back or review existing workplace safety regulations. One order directs agencies including the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) to eliminate existing protections before enacting new guidelines; the rationale for this order is, in part, to make extensive cuts to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). The cuts took effect on June 1 and were projected to reduce the NIOSH workforce from around 1,400 employees to less than 150—which will lead to a loss of at least 90 percent of the workforce and eliminate nearly all NIOSH programs. As of June 9, the agency also faced an 80 percent reduction in budget, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. 

Why NIOSH Matters: The Backbone of Worker Safety Research 

NIOSH has no enforcement power but is essential to the future of worker safety: the agency funds and develops research and training to support workplace health safety laws that OSHA enforces.  NIOSH educates various work disciplines in proper health and safety and informs the correct policy actors. Former employees and health experts have called the impact of these cuts significant and devastating and fear they will set back the state of occupational safety in the U.S. will have far-reaching effects on a variety of industries, including education, agriculture, medicine, construction, and more. The loss of at least 90 percent of NIOSH’s workforce will affect the development and flow of research information and the creation of up-to-date methodologies that keep people safe, essentially making an increase in injury and illness within the workforce inevitable. 

The services being cut are a part of Congressionally mandated programs. The volume of layoffs has hollowed-out longstanding programs, with operations abruptly ceased or reduced at: 

• National Occupational Research Agenda, a service that stimulates research and collaboration between industry, labor, and academia. 

• The Health Hazards Evaluation service, established to investigate workplace disease outbreaks. 

• NIOSH-funded training programs, meant to support students pursuing occupational health and safety careers. 

• The National Firefighter Registry for Cancer, developed to study and reduce the risk of cancer among firefighters. 

• Coal Workers’ Health Surveillance Program, which studies and treats respiratory diseases in miners and focuses on black lung disease. 

• The Respirator Approval Program, responsible for testing and approving respirators. 

Unions representing industries affected by these cuts have brought a number of lawsuits against the administration, challenging their legality. One recent class action lawsuit filed by a group of coal miners and supported by a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers appears to have successfully obtained a preliminary injunction to temporarily prohibit some of the cuts made to the Coal Workers’ Health Surveillance Program. According to Robert F. Kennedy Jr, this action reinstated 328 employees; it is not yet known which NIOSH divisions may be affected.  Even so, deep workforce cuts remain, and workers have indicated that NIOSH has not complied with the preliminary injunction. 

It’s clear that the NIOSH cuts were made without any rationale or research. Overall, the administration has justified all of its cuts as tools to reduce wasteful spending and promote efficiency within the organizations. But in reality, the NIOSH cuts have resulted in the cessation of critical work, numerous lawsuits, confusion, and widespread concern from individuals who rely on this work to do their own jobs safely. “Public health researchers and frontline scientists are being thrown out of their jobs while the country faces growing environmental, occupational and public health crises.” says Yolanda Jacobs, President of AFGE Local 2883. 

OSHA Faces Parallel Attacks and Underfunding 

Despite chronic underfunding and understaffing of the agency, workplace injuries, including industrial accidents, have seen a 60 percent decrease since OSHA was founded in the early 1970s. Regardless, President Trump’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 included a significant decrease in OSHA funding, posing a threat to this progress and the long-term safety of workers across the country. These budget cuts are expected to affect critical OSHA functions such as workplace inspections, responses to safety violations, and proactive safety training initiatives.  

Union Leaders and Lawmakers Speak Out 

The voices of labor advocates and industrial workers are palpable: these cuts have taken OSHA away from its founding commitments, and there is a deep sense of uncertainty and discomfort about how far-reaching these impacts could be. In a letter authored by Rep. Landsman (D-OH, terminated NIOSH workers urge the administration to reverse this decision, stating that “the work of these employees and contractors plays a critical role in worker safety and has enormous economic impacts in communities across the country” and warning of the incalculable effects of the decision. Similarly, 27 labor unions sent a letter to congress warning that the cuts “will take working conditions back centuries, when chronic occupational diseases and fatalities skyrocketed with no government agency to help identify causes and research interventions.” 

Without NIOSH contributions, OSHA’s workplace safety enforcement will suffer by way of: 

1. Reduced enforcement of safety standards, given that NIOSH identifies emerging hazards and threats to workplace safety. 

2. Overall weaker labor law enforcement and less data to support the progression of workplace safety standards due to OSHA’s inability to introduce protective measures based on new scientific research from NIOSH.  

3. Less compliance from employers in the face of reduced guidance and education on best worker safety practices, which may also affect the accessibility of safety information for workers. 

4. An overall higher level of regulatory uncertainty for employers in compliance with standards. 

One of the many expected detrimental impacts is the delay or potential elimination of a proposed heat standards rule introduced by OSHA last August, following years of NIOSH research and worker advocacy. The implementation of this standard would potentially protect an estimated 36 million workers from heat-related injury. This is just one example of the harm that millions of people may face. 

As the Trump Administration’s attacks escalate a growing national workers’ rights crisis, states must act to shore up their own worker health and safety protections and Congress must heed the calls of unions, affected workers, and advocates in restoring NIOSH and OSHA capacities.