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Safety and Health Movement

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Title: Safety and Health Movement


1
Chapter 1
  • Safety and Health Movement
  • Then and Now

2
Major Topics
  • Developments before the Industrial Revolution.
  • Milestones in the safety movement.
  • Tragedies that have changed the safety movement.
  • Role of organized labor.
  • Development of accident prevention programs.
  • Development of Safety Organizations.
  • Safety and Health Movement Today.

3
Safety Versus Health
  • Safety is concerned with injury causing
    situations. Safety is concerned with hazards to
    humans that result from sudden severe conditions.
  • Health is concerned with disease causing
    conditions. Health deals with adverse reactions
    to prolonged exposure to dangerous but less
    intense hazards.
  • An overly stressed worker may be prone to
    unintentionally forget safety precautions and
    thus may cause an accident.

4
Causes of Improvement in Workplace Safety
  • Improvements in safety have been the result of
    pressure for legislation to promote safety and
    health, the steadily increasing cost associated
    with accidents and injuries, and the
    professionalization of safety as an occupation.
  • Improvements in the future are likely to come as
    a result of greater awareness of the cost
    effectiveness and resultant competitiveness
    gained from a safe and healthy workforce.

5
Code of Hammurabi
  • The Code of Hamurabi (Babylonian king in 2000
    B.C.) contained clauses dealing with injuries,
    allowable fees for physicians, and monetary
    damages assessed against those who injured
    others.
  • If a man had caused the loss of a gentlemans
    eye, his own eye shall be caused to be lost.

6
Development of the First Organized Safety Program
  • When the industrial sector began to grow in the
    United States hazardous working conditions were
    commonplace.
  • Factory inspection was introduced in
    Massachusetts in 1897.
  • In 1869 the Pennsylvania legislature passed a
    mine safety law that required two exits from all
    mines.
  • In 1892, the first recorded safety program was
    established in a Joliet, Illinois steel plant.

7
Federick Taylors Connection to the Safety
Movement
  • Around 1900 Federick Taylor began studying
    efficiency in manufacturing.
  • His purpose was to identify the impact of various
    factors on efficiency, productivity, and
    profitability.
  • He drew the connection between lost personnel
    time and management policies and procedures.
  • This connection between safety and management
    represented a major step towards broad-based
    safety consciousness.

8
Development of the National Safety Council
  • The Association of Iron and Steel Electrical
    Engineers (AISEE) formed in the early 1900s,
    pressed for a national conference on safety.
  • As a result the first meeting of the Cooperative
    Safety Congress (CSC) took place in Milwaukee in
    1912.
  • A year after the meeting of the CSC, the National
    Council of Industrial Safety was established in
    Chicago.
  • In 1915, this organization changed its name to
    National Safety Council (NSC).
  • NSC is now the premier safety organization in the
    United States.

9
Impact of Labor Shortages in World War II on the
Safety Movement
  • From the end of World War I (1918) through the
    1950s safety awareness grew steadily.
  • During this period industry in the United States
    arrived at two critical conclusions
  • (1) There is a definite connection between
    Quality and Safety.
  • (2) Off-the-job accidents have a negative impact
    on productivity.
  • This became clear to manufacturers during World
    War II when call-up and deployment of troops had
    employers struggling to meet their labor needs.
  • For these employers, loss of a skilled worker due
    to injury or for any other reason created an
    excessive hardship.

10
Primary Reason behind the passage of the OSH Act
  • The 1960s saw the passage of a flurry of
    legislation promoting workplace safety. These
    laws applied to a limited audience of workers.
  • According to the Society of Manufacturing
    Engineers (SME) more significant legislation was
    needed because the state legislated safety
    requirements only in specific industries had
    inadequate safety and health standards, and had
    inadequate budgets for enforcement.
  • In the late 1960s more than 14,000 employees were
    killed annually in connection with their jobs,
    and work injury rates were rising.
  • These were the primary reasons for the passage of
    the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act
    (OSH Act) of 1970. It represents the most
    significant legislation to date in the history of
    the safety movement.

11
How workplace tragedies have affected the Safety
Movement
  • Safety and health tragedies in the workplace have
    greatly accelerated the pace of the safety
    movement in the United States.
  • Hawks Nest Tragedy Workers spent as many as 10
    hours per day breathing the dust created by
    drilling and blasting a passageway through a
    mountain located in the Hawks Nest region of
    West Virginia that had an unusually high silica
    content. Silicosis is a disease that normally
    takes 10 to 30 years to show up in exposed
    workers. At Hawks Nest workers began dying in as
    little time as a year. Approximately one million
    workers in the United States are still exposed to
    silica every year, and 250 people die annually
    from silicosis. Today administrative controls,
    engineering controls, and personal protective
    equipment are used to protect workers in a dusty
    environment.
  • Asbestos Menace In 1964 Dr. Selikoff linked
    asbestos to lung cancer and respiratory diseases.
    It was found in homes, schools , offices,
    factories, ships and filter of cigarettes. In the
    1970s and 1980s asbestos became a controlled
    material.
  • Bhopal Tragedy In 1984 over 40 tons of Methyl
    isocyanate (MIC) and other lethal gases,
    including hydrogen cyanide leaked into the
    northern end of Bhopal killing over 3000 people.
    Union Carbide had to pay 470 million in
    compensatory damage. In the US it led to the
    Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know
    Act (EPCRA) of 1986.

12
Role of Organized Labor in Advancement of Safety
Movement
  • Organized labor has played a crucial role in the
    development of the safety movement in the United
    States.
  • From the Industrial Revolution time, organized
    labor has fought for safer working conditions and
    appropriate compensation for workers injured on
    the job.
  • Many of the earliest developments in the safety
    movement were the result of long and hard-fought
    battles by organized labor.

13
Fellow Servant Rule, Contributory Negligence, and
Assumption of Risk
  • The Fellow Servant Rule held that employers were
    not liable for workplace injuries that resulted
    from the negligence of other employees.
  • Contributory Negligence If the actions of
    employees contributed to their own injuries, the
    employer was not held liable.
  • Assumption of Risk People who accept a job
    assume the risks that go with it.
  • These employer biased laws were overturned in all
    states except in New Hampshire where the fellow
    servant rule still applies.

14
The three Es of SafetyEngineering, Education,
and Enforcement
  • The Engineering aspects of a safety program
    involve making design improvements to both
    product and process to decrease potential
    hazards.
  • The Education aspect of a safety program ensures
    that employees know how to work safely, why it is
    important to do so, and that safety is expected
    by management.
  • The Enforcement aspect of a safety program
    involves making sure that employees abide by
    safety policies, rules, regulations, practices
    and procedures. Supervisors and fellow employees
    play a key role in the enforcement aspect of
    modern safety programs.

15
Development of Safety Organizations
  • Fig 1-3, page 12 Organizations concerned with
    workplace safety American Society of Safety
    Engineers, National Safety Council (NSC),
  • Fig 1-4, page 13 Governmental Agencies concerned
    with workplace safety Environmental Protection
    Agency (EPA), National Institute for Occupational
    Safety and Health (NIOSH), Occupational Safety
    and Health Administration (OSHA),

16
Integrated Approach to Safety and Health
  • Learn more through sharing knowledge about health
    problems in the workplace, particularly those
    caused by toxic substances.
  • Provide a greater level of expertise in
    evaluating health and safety problems.
  • Provide a broad database that can be used to
    compare health and safety problems experienced by
    different companies in the same industry.
  • Encourage accident prevention.
  • Make employee health and safety a high priority.
  • OSHA reinforces the integrated approach by
    requiring companies to have a plan for doing at
    least the following
  • 1. Providing appropriate medical treatment for
    injured or ill workers.
  • 2. Regularly examining workers who are exposed to
    toxic substances.
  • 3. Having a qualified first-aid person available
    during all working hours.

17
Modern Industrial Companies may include the
following positions
  • Industrial Hygiene Chemist and/or Engineer
    Companies that use toxic substances periodically
    test the work environment. Dust levels,
    ventilation and noise levels are also monitored.
    Unsafe conditions or hazardous levels of exposure
    can be identified and corrected or preventive
    measures can be taken.
  • Radiation Control Specialist Companies that use
    or produce radioactive material employ
    specialists to monitor radiation levels to which
    workers may be exposed, test workers for level of
    exposure, respond to radiation accidents, develop
    plans for handling radiation accidents, and
    implement decontamination procedures when
    necessary.
  • Industrial Safety Engineer or Manager They are
    responsible for developing and carrying out the
    companiysoverall health and safety program
    including accident prevention, accident
    investigation, and education and training. (Jobs
    with this one course)
  • The complexities of the modern workplace have
    made safety and health a growing profession.

18
Summary
  • A milestone in safety is the passage of OSHA in
    1970.
  • Labor unions have worked to overturn anti labor
    laws inhibiting safety.
  • Health problems in the workplace include lung
    disease in miners, and lung cancer tied to
    asbestos.
  • The asbestos menace, and Bhopal disaster have
    changed the face of the safety movement.
  • Accident prevention techniques include fail safe
    designs, lockout, PPE, redundancy and timed
    replacements.
  • A leading safety organization is the American
    Society of Safety Engineers.
  • A safety team may include a safety engineer,
    nurse, and dietician.

19
Home Work
  • Do questions 1, 8, 10 and 11 on pages 16-17 and
    turn it in next week.
  • 1. To what causes can improvement in workplace
    safety made to date be attributed?
  • 8. Explain the primary reasons behind the passage
    of the OSH Act.
  • 10. Define the following terms fellow servant
    rule, contributory negligence, and assumption of
    risk.
  • 11. Explain the three Es of Safety.
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