Trump cuts threaten safety training for America's most dangerous jobs

By the time Robbie Roberge spotted the fire consuming his boat's galley last August, he knew he had just minutes to evacuate his beloved Three Girls fishing vessel, named for his daughters.

As the flames spread up the boat's walls, he helped his crew into safety suits, deployed a life raft and made a mayday call to alert nearby mariners and the U.S. Coast Guard that he was abandoning ship more than 100 miles offshore.

Roberge, a commercial fisherman from South Portland, Maine, learned how to handle such an emergency just three months earlier at a workshop held by Fishing Partnership Support Services (FPSS), a nonprofit that has trained thousands of East Coast fishermen in safety practices.

On May 20, Roberge cut a fishing trip short to bring the six-man crew from his remaining boat, the Maria JoAnn, to another FPSS training in Newburyport, Massachusetts.

"I have years of experience, but not dealing with emergencies," said Roberge, whose handling of the fire led to a successful rescue with no injuries." I make it a point to be here."

Such safety trainings, aimed at fishermen, loggers, farmers and other workers in America's most dangerous jobs, could be scaled back or wound down entirely as soon as July, according to Reuters interviews with a dozen health and safety experts and organizations, as a result of U.S. President Donald Trump's drive to slash the size and cost of the federal government.

Those cuts have fallen heavily on the federal government's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services that is a key funder of workplace safety training and research.

Winding down

The Trump administration on April 1 terminated about 875 of the roughly 1,000 employees at NIOSH, including most of the staff who provide technical advice and support to a dozen Centers for Agricultural Safety and Health focused on fishing, farming and logging workers.

Although Trump this month reinstated about 300 NIOSH employees, they do not include the office overseeing the centers, according to data compiled by government worker unions.

Staff at seven of the centers described preparations to close down when their current funding cycles run out in the coming months.

J. Glenn Morris, director of the Southeastern Coastal Center for Agricultural Health and Safety at the University of Florida, said his team had already begun winding down work in anticipation of losing their NIOSH grant on September 29.

NIOSH funding for the Alaska Marine Safety Education Association's fishermen safety trainings could run out as soon as July 1, said executive director Leann Cyr.

FPSS also expects to lose NIOSH funding in September, potentially leading it to cut back on trainings, said Dan Orchard, the group's executive vice president.

The loss of the trainings could put more burden on federal marine rescue services when fishermen face emergencies at sea, said John Roberts, an FPSS instructor who spent 31 years in the Coast Guard doing search and rescue.

"The return on investment of the government is huge," he said. "If they give us this money to do this training, it’s going to lessen how much money has to be spent to rescue the untrained."

Asked to comment on the NIOSH job cuts, an HHS spokesperson said: "The work will continue. HHS supports America’s farmers, fishmen, and logging workers."

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., said in March that the staff reductions are necessary to reduce bureaucracy and improve efficiency and that NIOSH would be combined with other sub-agencies into a new Administration for a Healthy America.

(With input from Reuters)