FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 30, 2025
United Mine Workers of America Responds to Reversal of MSHA Office Closures
[TRIANGLE, VA] The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) welcomes the decision by the Trump administration to reverse its planned closure of 34 Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) offices across the country. This reversal comes after sustained opposition from the UMWA and other mine safety advocates who raised serious concerns about the dangerous implications these closures would have posed for mine safety.
“The idea that anyone would even consider shuttering dozens of MSHA field offices, most of which are located in remote mining communities, shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what it takes to keep miners safe,” said UMWA International President Cecil E. Roberts. “We’ve said from day one that cutting these offices would compromise inspectors’ ability to respond quickly to accidents, enforce safety regulations, and protect the lives of our members and their coworkers.”
While the union is relieved that the majority of these closures have been reversed, Roberts stressed that the decision should never have come to this point.
“Mine safety is not something you experiment with,” Roberts said. “We cannot afford policies that gamble with miners’ lives just to see if the system holds. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed — but it should never have taken public outcry to get here.”
The UMWA calls on the General Services Administration and the Department of Labor to provide full transparency about which offices remain at risk, and to halt any remaining efforts to reduce the government’s mine safety infrastructure.
“Our miners deserve better than to be used as pawns in a campaign of bureaucratic cost-cutting,” Roberts said. “We will continue to fight to ensure every MSHA inspector has the tools, the access, and the presence needed to safeguard America’s coal miners.”
