UMWA’s Roberts Intervened To Save Federal Black Lung Program

United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts was among those who personally asked the U.S. health secretary to save a program that screens for black lung.

After the Department of Health and Human Services put Coal Worker Health Surveillance Program employees on administrative leave last month and issued them termination notices, some high-profile figures intervened.

U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito spoke to Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about it and connected him with Roberts.

At a protest Thursday at HHS headquarters in Washington, Roberts said he gave Kennedy an earful about the staff cuts.

“She calls me, I said ‘I know somebody he can talk to.’” Roberts said. “And I started asking him the questions you’re posing today.”

HHS reinstated the black lung monitoring program after U.S. District Judge Irene Berger issued a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit by a West Virginia coal miner with black lung.

Berger’s ruling did result in the reinstatement of the Respiratory Health Division of the National Institute for Occupational Health at HHS, including the black lung monitoring staff, but other NIOSH functions did not return.

Those include the mining research team in Pittsburgh, which works to make mines safer and mine emergencies more survivable.

The UMWA and other labor groups sued HHS and Kennedy last week to restore NIOSH in its entirety.