Millions of Americans gathered around their kitchen tables to visit with friends and family and indulge in favorite recipes late last month. Those who could luxuriate in a long holiday weekend did just that, but not everyone got to enjoy it; about a third of the American workforce still had to get up and go to work as usual on Thanksgiving. Surprisingly, that included at least a few members of the Trump administration’s Labor Department, who spent their holiday dealing yet another crippling blow to the nation’s beleaguered coal miners.
On November 26th, the Department of Labor and the National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association filed a status update in an ongoing lawsuit over a long-awaited workplace safety regulation. Taken out of context, this may not sound all that exciting, but it’s actually quite devastating. One of the Biden administration’s last useful actions was to issue a new Permissible Exposure Limit (PEL) for respirable crystalline silica that was aimed at protecting coal miners from inhaling the dangerous, carcinogenic dust particles. Then and now, the law allows coal miners to be exposed to twice as much of the toxic dust as any other worker in the country.
Silica is 20 times more toxic than coal dust, and its destructive reign has extracted a heavy price from the people of Appalachia.
Since 1974, when the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) first warned of silica’s harmful effects, coal miners and their advocates have been pushing for federal protections to limit their exposure to the deadly silica dust while working underground. As I’ve written about extensively at In These Times and elsewhere, silica is fueling a devastating black lung epidemic throughout Central Appalachia that is claiming miners’ lungs — and their lives—much more quickly than we’ve seen in older generations, with workers as young as their 20s, 30s, and 40s suffering from black lung’s iron grip.
Biden’s Department of Labor estimated that the new rule would have resulted in about 1,067 lifetime avoided deaths and 3,746 lifetime avoided cases of silica-related illnesses. It took many years of organizing, advocacy, and sheer grit to nudge the federal government into action, with Republican politicians, even those in coal-producing states, trying like hell to block the rule however they could. Many felt that the rule they ended up with was still too soft on mine operators (and that 50 micrograms of silica exposure was still 50 micrograms too much). It was a start, though, and April 18, 2024, when the new rule was published, was a day of celebration for those who had fought so hard for so long.
A compliance date of April 14, 2025 was set to give the sulky mining operators who’d agitated against the rule plenty of time to adjust and update their engineering controls and safety protocols. But l President Donald Trump was elected for a second term, and under his auspices, worker safety has gone out the window — and so has this long-awaited, desperately needed rule. On April 8. 2025, it was announced that the rule’s enforcement would be “temporarily paused” until the following August; then it was pushed to October. This latest update has taken it off the table altogether
The National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association was there every step of the way, angling to have the rule thrown out entirely — and perhaps leaning on their old friend, Wayne D. Palmer, a former top mining industry player who was confirmed as the Assistant Secretary for the Mine Safety and Health agency (MSHA) on October 7, 2025.
Later that month, miners toting oxygen tanks and “Coal Miners Lives Matter” signs traveled to Washington D.C. to rally in front of the Department of Labor’s Frances Perkins building and call on President Trump personally to heed their pleas. Some attendees were furious at the entire administration and its betrayal of the miners. Others had voted for Trump, and still believed that he cared. They are all hoping for a miracle.
“We need your Republican support to get this passed because, without this, it’s an early death sentence for our miners,” Vonda Robinson, Vice President of the National Black Lung Association, pleaded during the rally. Her husband, John, is a retired miner with black lung who is waiting for a lung transplant, and they have both long been fierce advocates for the rule.
“They deserve to be able to breathe, they deserve to be able to go home to their families. We’re here to make America healthy again, too,” Robinson said. “We need that for our miners. We need your help with this rule.”
Trump didn’t listen. Neither did Vice President J. D. Vance, a self-proclaimed Appalachian “hillbilly” who appears to spend most of his time preening on Elon Musk’s wretched cesspool of a social media site — and has not paid an ounce of attention to the nation’s dying coal miners since he ascended to power off the backs of less fortunate Appalachians. Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer, whose appointment to the Trump cabinet was endorsed by the Teamsters, ignored the miners entirely. As her embarrassing tenure illustrates, the Trump administration’s drastic and often astonishingly short-sighted anti-regulatory agenda takes precedence over workers’ lives, whether they’re mining coal or breathing in asbestos at a makeup studio.
It’s exactly what some feared would happen. “[The Biden] administration is more forcefully, creatively and successfully committed to empowering miners than any MSHA Administration throughout history,” Sam Petsonk, a West Virginian attorney who handles miners’ black lung cases, had said during a public hearing in Beckley, W.V. in 2023. “But future administrations could neglect such oversight — leaving the foxes to guard the henhouses much of the time.”
Now, the foxes will be remaking the rule entirely.
The November 26th update reveals that Secretary Chavez-DeRemer “will engage in limited rulemaking to reconsider and seek comments on portions of the Silica Rule impacted by this appeal,” which means that Trump’s administration now has the opportunity to re-do parts of the silica rule with much more input from its friends in the mining industry (and presumably, much less from the miners’ unions, public health experts, environmental groups, and workers themselves who helped shape the initial rule under Biden). During that process—however long it may take — the original rule will not be in effect. In addition, the administration’s filing does not include any information about which parts of the rule they intend to update, whether they want to implement any part of the rule in the meantime, or on what timeline they will do the rulemaking.
Essentially, it’s dead in the water — and in the meantime, as workplace safety expert Jordan Barab’s Confined Space notes, the delay is “condemning about 19 mineworkers every week to preventable deaths.” Under the Trump regime, “America first” means “workers last.”
The Labor Department didn’t have time to listen to the miners when they came right up to their doorstep to beg for relief, but don’t worry — on December 6th, National Miners’ Day, they made sure to post about them on social media. “Our miners power our nation, keeping the lights on and ensuring we can all live comfortably. On National Miners Day, we celebrate and honor these American heroes. May God bless our miners!” the DOL wrote on Facebook and Instagram, alongside a photo of Secretary Chavez-DeRemer posing importantly in a hardhat under a nice clear blue sky, well aboveground. Meanwhile, the United Mine Workers of America marked the occasion by posting a video calling on her and Trump to save the silica rule.
Actions speak louder than words (and posts), and it’s clear what the Trump administration is really saying to the nation’s coal miners, and to every other worker who dares to ask for a shred of basic human dignity. It’s the same message as it’s been all along: “As long as we can continue to live comfortably, you can go straight to hell.”
Kim Kelly is a freelance journalist and author based in Philadelphia, PA. She is a labor writer for In These Times, a labor columnist at Teen Vogue and Fast Company, and regularly contributes to many other publications. Her first book, FIGHT LIKE HELL: The Untold History of American Labor, is now available from One Signal/Simon & Schuster. Follow her on Twitter at @grimkim and subscribe to her newsletter, Salvo, here.
