By Cindy Skrzycki
Tuesday, May 23, 2006; D01

Could he be the next Jay Leno?

Normally, assistant secretaries at the Labor Department aren't stand-up comedians. They give low-key speeches about the mission of the agency, especially if they run the Occupational Safety and Health Administration , which focuses on worker safety and health. They use lots of numbers and thank everyone for the good job they are doing to cut illness and injury rates.

But new OSHA chief Edwin G. Foulke Jr. , a South Carolina labor law attorney, was a bit more informal when he gave a speech early this month meant to highlight the good work of children who had won a safety-on-the-job poster contest sponsored by the American Society of Safety Engineers .

Depending on who was listening, his talk, in his second month on the job, was either a big success or an offensive flop.

Gearing the speech toward the children in the audience, Foulke said kids were often smarter than adults. The name of the speech, "Adults Do the Darndest Things," was a play on the popular Art Linkletter television show and books in which children were quizzed and often responded with funny, but sometimes inappropriate, answers.

The approach clearly did not play well with everyone, depending which side of the labor-management divide the listener or reader was on.

In a year when families lost loved ones in multiple mining accidents and at a BP refinery in Ohio, the labor community interpreted the remarks as a slam at workers, blaming them for stupid mistakes on the job. Overall, there were close to 6,000 fatalities in 2004, the latest year available, plus 4.3 million injuries and illnesses.

What disturbed labor groups, critics of the Bush administration and families of workers who have been injured or killed were not the kids' posters, but the pictures Foulke juxtaposed alongside them to illustrate dangerous workplace practices.

They were a series of shots of workers doing improbable, dangerous things: someone standing on a ladder in a pool changing a light bulb, a guy on a ladder propped up against a power line, a worker repairing a truck propped up on its side, individuals covered in hazmat suits with an onlooker wearing shorts and T-shirt. ("I hope he wore sunscreen," quipped Foulke.)

"Looking at the posters," said Foulke in the speech, "I was reminded of a couple examples of safety and health bloopers that are both humorous and horrible." He repeated the bloopers in a speech a week later to a Georgia trade group.

It wasn't long before the remarks were being discussed on a widely read blog that covers labor-management issues called Confined Space.

"OSHA Director Ed Foulke Blames Workplace Carnage on Dumb Employees," read the headline, written by Jordan Barab , a former OSHA and union official.

"It's a bad tone to set when you're dealing with people dying in the workplace," said Barab, whose blog includes a weekly toll of worker fatalities. "It's, 'Look at all these stupid workers. Even the kids aren't that stupid,' " he said. "The implication is workers do stupid things."

Michael Wright , director of health, safety and environment for the United Steelworkers , said he read the speech on Barab's blog. "I think he was being insensitive, and he thought it was humorous. It insults accident victims," said Wright.

Union safety and health professionals thought the speech reinforced a management view that accidents are the result of behavior -- careless mistakes -- rather than a lack of training or hazardous work conditions.

"In the absence of a hazard, it's hard to have an injury or an illness," said William H. Kojola , industrial hygienist for the AFL-CIO . "This is focusing on the wrong cause. I was stunned."

In an interview, Foulke said he wasn't trying to offend anyone. He said the presentation, given in the auditorium of the Labor Department, was geared toward an audience of kids and their families.

"Kids recognize the importance of safety, and they want their parents to come home [from work] every day," said Foulke. "This is OSHA's goal and my goal. That's part of our charge that workers go home every day safe and sound to their loved ones."

"You had to be there for the whole thing," said Diane Hurns , spokeswoman for the ASSE. "The focus was on the kids. I don't think there was an effort to embarrass workers."

Foulke is no stranger to Washington or the constituencies that might take a speech the way they did.

In 1990, President George H.W. Bush appointed Foulke the youngest chairman of the OSHA Review Commission , an independent federal agency that hears appeals from companies cited by OSHA for safety infractions.

Foulke acted as chairman until 1994. He then spent another year as a member. During his time as chairman, he whittled away at a backlog of cases and generally was regarded as a good administrator and someone who got along well with people.

"He is as nice a guy as anyone who you would want to meet in your life," said Earl Ohman , former general counsel at the Review Commission. "He had a very good sense of deciding cases and what was right and what would fly."

Arthur G. Sapper , an attorney for management in McDermott Will & Emery 's OSHA practice, had a different read on the speech: "Ed never said all unsafe conditions are due to employee misbehavior. The criticism that he did [do that] is off the mark." Sapper was deputy general counsel at the commission before Foulke arrived.

When he left the commission, Foulke joined Jackson Lewis LLP , a South Carolina law firm, as a partner. The firm is known as a tough union buster and is advertising on its Web site a $595 seminar on "How to Stay Union Free."

The White House has named Steven D. Aitken , a 17-year veteran and now deputy general counsel at the Office of Management and Budget , as acting director of its regulatory review office.