Last night, the Senate confirmed David Michaels as the new Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health.
Congratulations, David! All of us at George Washington University and The Pump Handle will miss working with you, but we’re eager to see an OSHA where the top leadership is dedicated to realizing the vision of safe and healthy workplaces for all.
The Pump Handle 
11 comments
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December 4, 2009 at 10:57 am
Brett
Someday we’ll get to the top of the mountain.
December 4, 2009 at 11:27 am
Darren
“…we’re eager to see an OSHA where the top leadership is dedicated to realizing the vision of safe and healthy workplaces for all.” What a slap in the face to all of the OSHA top leadership that sticks around from one administration to the next! I guess the implication is that they don’t have any dedication to safe workplaces, and that the only ones dedicated are the appointed administration and his cronies. What a joke.
December 4, 2009 at 11:58 am
Liz
Darren, I was referring to the top positions that do change from one administration to the next – you’re absolutely right that there are many dedicated OSHA employees (in all types of positions) who work hard for safety year in and year out, and I didn’t intend any disrespect to them. I expect their ongoing and tireless efforts on behalf of workers will have more of an impact now.
December 4, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Rory O'Neill
I don’t suppose you could lend him to US? We’ve got an agency the UK that seems intend on repeated on deadly errors of OSHA under Bush.
December 4, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Adam
I’m not sure why Liz should be amending or apologizing for her original post, and I suggest that Darren take a walk around the Perkins Building someday, or look at some of the quotes in the major newspapers from current OSHA offials who have been there for decades. As someone who was part of the “OSHA top leadership” from 1995-2005, I agree with Liz’s comment that there are many dedicated employees at OSHA, but I also agree with the post: the day when “the top leadership is dedicated to realizing the vision of safe and healthy workplaces for all” has not yet arrived, in my opinion. David’s arrival will increase that number by one, but he will be greeted by leadership that deserves a “slap in the face,” or at least a wake-up call.
December 5, 2009 at 2:18 am
dves
That’s a big issue here. You can say that because the administration has the power that’s why they stick to it. And that’s the reality today. Actually I don’t like the way it is.
December 7, 2009 at 6:41 pm
B from NIOSH
OSHA needs to take advantage of this and do the job they were created to do. OSHA is lucky; the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is stuck with a re-appointment from the Bush era who believes in industry doing the right thing. While OSHA moves forward NIOSH will relive the last six years of John Howard letting industry set the research goals in his NORA debacle.
December 9, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Truth About Mold
I’m happy to hear that OSHA will have a leader who understands the health effects of toxic mold. For accurate information about the health effects of mold, check out this new website:
http://truthaboutmold.info
January 7, 2010 at 4:01 pm
Diana Hartel
First, congratulations, David. This news brought to me a mixture of the feelings I had when Obama was elected – hope for a real change for us all, and apprehension over the renewed onslaught from industries that would continue to do whatever they can to ignore worker safety and to pollute at will. You have my fervent best wishes in the coming months and years. In the hearings I’ve attended the past few years, there has been an open viciousness that seems to be worsening. I have faith in you, David, in the continuing effort to turn that around.
January 13, 2010 at 12:19 pm
Tom
Giving OSHA bigger and sharper teeth in the enforcement area is a good thing as long as it does not take away for the parternship programs that previous administrations have worked so hard to establish. The Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) is a great example of how a partnership with OSHA can improve health and safety in a very cooperative spirit where all come together for the greater good (management, workers, unions).
July 13, 2011 at 1:05 pm
Joe
Tom is exactly right! For anybody to think that all of industry is out to polute and doesn’t care about worker safety has no credibility and a limited understanding of the real world. Safety is everyone’s responsibility and VPP is by far the best program that OSHA has ever come up with to promote safety. We just became VPP certified and it was a lot of work to get there but well worth it. Does it mean we didn’t care about safety prior to VPP, no, but it means we are better now than we used to be. Good programs will make everyone better and as long as they continue forward form admin to admin then it doesn’t matter who is in charge. BTW, VPP was under threat of losing its funding when the new admin originally took over, that would have been a colossal mistake!