How Union Members Are Fighting To Protect The Protectors – OpEd

Wes Parcell and his coworkers use lead, nitroglycerin, and other deadly substances to manufacture propellants and munitions for America's war machine.

Facing risks like toxic exposure and fire every day, they decided to double down on safety and called in a key federal agency in the fall of 2025 to review conditions at the Radford Army Ammunition Plant in southwestern Virginia.

Representatives from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) showed up and dug in for a three-day "health hazard evaluation," giving the once-over to everything from the workers' personal protective equipment to the structural integrity of elevated work platforms.

They even swabbed the microwave oven handle in the lunchroom to ensure dangerous substances weren't migrating from one part of the plant to another.

Parcell and his colleagues, members of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 8-495, now go to work with renewed confidence and lasting gratitude for the NIOSH team's expertise.

They're also breathing easier knowing that Donald Trump recently caved under pressure and backed down from his reckless plan to gut NIOSH. That means the union members at Radford and millions of other workers across the country will continue to benefit from the agency's life-saving mission.

"I was obviously very relieved and thankful," said Parcell, vice president of Local 8-495. "I'd hate to think that they wouldn't be there to help someone who needed them just as much as we did."

"They really showed that they cared," Parcell said of the NIOSH officials. "They were very diligent. They left no stone unturned."

The local's 900 or so members negotiated strong health and safety language provisions at the government-owned site, where they work for a contractor, BAE Systems.

Still, workers recognized the value of an independent, thorough review given the dangerous environment—and records showed that NIOSH last conducted that kind of deep dive at the facility decades before.

"A lot of the stuff we work with is very volatile," Parcell explained. "It's very flammable. It burns at a very high heat."

NIOSH provides health hazard evaluations at no cost whenever workers, unions, or employers request them because of concerns about heat, noise, radiation, chemical exposure, infectious diseases, musculoskeletal issues, or other threats.

The agency posts the final reports online, enabling everyone to benefit from its findings at sites ranging from schools to wastewater treatment plants to foundries.

After evaluating the Radford plant, the NIOSH team issued a quick summary of findings, making suggestions for maintenance, housekeeping, storage of chemicals, and other improvements. They promised to start working on the longer, more comprehensive report and to return if workers ever needed them.

But then, Parcell recalled, their NIOSH contacts "dropped off the face of the earth."

There was just one reason for that. In April 2025, Trump summarily cut 90 percent of NIOSH's workforce, all but wiping out a well-established, one-of-a-kind agency that paid for itself in lives saved.

Besides workers' access to health hazard evaluations, Trump's nonsensical attack on NIOSH imperiled other critical missions performed by no one else.

That included studying miners' health, helping the nation respond to disasters, conducting research on workplace hazards, and training the next generation of health experts while also certifying the respirators used by many workers and the self-contained breathing apparatus essential to firefighters.

Workers, unions, and allies fought back with a fury that grabbed Trump's attention. They held rallies, went to court to block the cuts, and demanded that members of Congress take a stand with them.

The workers won. Early in 2026, the government called hundreds of NIOSH staff members back to their jobs, and they're already restarting projects and otherwise cleaning up the mess Trump made.

Parcell said the inspectors he worked with got in touch with him to say they're reviewing lab results, obtaining more information from management, and taking other steps essential to completing their final report on Radford.

"This was the first interaction we had with them since September," he said.

Sadly, the fight for safety is far from over.

While celebrating NIOSH's revival, workers continue to make strides toward saving another essential safety agency that Trump keeps trying to kill.

Workers, unions, and even industry bosses all rallied to preserve the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), which investigates the root causes of chemical-related incidents and makes recommendations for making industries safer.

The agency performs this critical work with a $14 million budget and a workforce of about 50. Abolishing it means saving pennies at the cost of lives, and yet Trump attempts to eliminate the CSB every year he's in office.

"It shows how out of touch some people in government are," observed Kyle Downour, unit chair for USW Local 1-346, surprised that abolishing an agency as valuable as the CSB would ever cross anyone's mind. "It's amazing what they do with 50 people."

Downour worked closely with the CSB after a fire at an oil refinery in Oregon, Ohio, that killed two USW members—brothers Max and Ben Morrissey—in 2022. The agency's comprehensive report—detailing the chain of events ending in calamity—left a deep impression on refinery workers.

"You could tell they absolutely had a desire to understand so they could possibly make things safer," Downour recalled.

While he's pleased that Congress agreed to continue funding the CSB for now, he pointed out that workers and CSB staff members require long-term stability.

Working people also need to be assured of a robust NIOSH going forward, said Parcell, noting, "It's nice to have somebody in our corner."

"NIOSH looks at the facts," Parcell said. "Is it a hazard or is it not a hazard? NIOSH is a great third party that determines that for us."

• Author Bio: David McCall is the international president of the United Steelworkers Union (USW).
• Credit Line: This article was produced by the Independent Media Institute.