Last month, Assistant Secretary of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration Dr. David Michaels held an OSHA Employees All-Hands Meeting. OSHA employees who were not able to attend the meeting in person were able to participate through the web.

All this week, ISHN will present excerpts from Michaels’ speech at that meeting.

Here is the first installment:

I have been saying this since I joined the agency: We at OSHA don't kill jobs - we stop jobs from killing workers. Three rigorous studies, all recently published in prestigious, peer-reviewed journals, have confirmed the effectiveness of our enforcement activities.

OSHA is doing great, important work, none of which would be possible without you. Whether you conduct inspections or do policy analysis or administrative work, whether you work in a lab or in human resources-each of us has an equal stake in accomplishing OSHA's mission. We are all dedicated to protecting the safety and health of this nation's workers, and together we are saving lives.

We have also had strong support from President Obama and from Secretary Solis. It has been a great honor for me to serve under the leadership of Secretary Solis, and we wish her well as she embarks on the next chapter of her life. I thank her for the solid foundation she put in place and her commitment to Good Jobs For Everyone, and I promise to carry on this important work.

Seth Harris, who has been the Deputy Secretary at the Department of Labor, is now Acting Secretary. He has been a strong champion of worker safety and the work that OSHA has done, and has told us to stay the course.

Tomorrow: OSHA heroes