Soon to be unemployed government workers and their supporters gathered in Bridgetown Friday afternoon to protest dramatic cuts by the Trump administration.
Micah Niemeier-Walsh says she's one of the unionized employees who's been told she'll be let go from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in Cincinnati. The end date could be as soon as May 1. She’s the vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees, Local 3840.
The cuts come from Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.
“I’m sure if you ask any government worker they could give you some pointers on ways that things could be more efficient,” she says. “There’s always red tape and bureaucracy in very large institutions like the federal government. But they never asked us what the problems were. They never asked us where things could be streamlined and more efficient.
"Instead, they just took a sledgehammer to everything,” she says.
Niemeier-Walsh says NIOSH saves employers billions of dollars by finding ways to prevent illness and injury in the workplace. She says Congress needs to enforce the law it passed creating NIOSH in 1970.
NIOSH employees and union members waved signs outside Congressman Warren Davidson's Hamilton County office Friday afternoon. Hannah Echt says she's another one of the hundreds of workers who've been told they're being let go.
“They’re trying to get rid of our institute. That’s about 90% of us nationwide they’re trying to get rid of,” Echt says. “I just think, and many of us think, we’re too important to be gotten rid of like this.”
There are two NIOSH facilities in Cincinnati. They were supposed to be consolidated into a new campus near Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Reading Road in Uptown. Funding for that $110 million project was appropriated, but its future is now up in the air.
“I’m assuming if there’s no NIOSH employees, there’s no new NIOSH building,” Niemeier-Walsh says.
Representative Davidson's office did not return a call asking for comment.
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