Even though he proposed slashing the Department of Labor's overall budget, President Obama called for increasing the money allotted to its department charged with overseeing workplace safety and spending more money protecting whistleblowers in his proposed budget today.

Obama asked Congress for $583 million to fund the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in his fiscal 2012 budget. That is $10 million more than the $573 million he asked for last year.

The proposed allotment for OSHA is also more than was passed in the 2011 continuing resolution, $561 million. That number may change, however, as Republicans are seeking to renegotiate the continuing resolution for the second half of the year.

The increase comes as Obama sought to make significant cuts to the Labor Department's budget. He proposed a 5 percent reduction from the department's actual 2010 spending, cutting more than $1 billion from its estimated 2011 budget.

In the proposal, Obama tied the uptick in OSHA spending to other worker protection programs, such as the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (see related story). All included, the budget proposes $1.8 billion for Labor's working protection agencies, including an additional $5 million to bolster OSHA's enforcement of 19 laws that are designed to protect whistleblowers.