Safety

1
Safety Health Movement

• Historical Perspective and Overview

2
Safety Movement

• Has developed steadily since the early 1900s.
• Industrial accidents were commonplace in this
  country.
• In 1907 over 3,200 people were killed in mining
  accidents.

3
Safety Movement

• Legislation, precedent, and public opinion all
  favored management.
• Few protections for workers safety.
• Today working conditions have improved.
• The current death rate from work-related injuries
  is less than a third of the rate 50 years ago.

4
Before the Industrial Revolution

• Safety health laws begins in the days of the
  ancient Babylonians, circa 2000 BC.
• The code of Hammurabi.
• Contained clauses dealing with injuries,
  allowable fees for physicians, and monetary
  damages assessed against those who injured
  others.

5
Before the Industrial Revolution

• The movement continued with the Egyptian
  civilization.
• Rameses II (circa 1500 BC), undertook a major
  construction project.
• To be successful, Rameses created an industrial
  medical service to care for workers.

6
Before the Industrial Revolution

• They were required to bathe daily in the Nile,
  and were given regular medical examinations.
• Sick workers were isolated.

7
Before the Industrial Revolution

• The Romans were also concerned with safety
  health.
• They built aqueducts, sewerage systems, public
  bathes, latrines, and well-ventilated houses.

8
Milestones in the Safety Movement

• 1867 Massachusetts introduces factory
  inspections.
• 1868 patent is awarded for the first barrier
  safeguard.
• 1869 Pennsylvania passes law requiring two exists
  from all mines, and the Bureau of labor
  Statistics is formed.

9
Milestones in the Safety Movement

• 1877 Massachusetts passes a law requiring
  safeguards on hazardous machines, and the
  Employers liability law is passed.
• 1892 First recorded safety program is
  established.
• 1900 Fredrick Taylor conducts first systematic
  studies of efficiency in manufacturing.

10
Milestones in the Safety Movement

• 1907 Bureau of Mines is created by U.S.
  Department of the Interior.
• 1908 Concept of workers compensation is
  introduced in the United States.
• 1911 Wisconsin passes the first effective
  workers compensation law in the United States.

11
Milestones in the Safety Movement

• 1911 New Jersey becomes the first state to uphold
  a workers compensation law.
• 1912 First Cooperative Safety Congress meets in
  Milwaukee.
• 1913 National Council of Industrial Safety is
  formed.
• 1915 NCIS changes its name to National Safety
  Council.

12
Milestones in the Safety Movement

• 1916 Concept of negligent manufacture is
  established (product liability).
• 1936 National Silicosis Conference convened by
  the U.S. secretary of Labor.
• 1970 Occupational Safety and Health Act passes.
• 1977 Federal Mine Safety Act passes.

13
Milestones in the Safety Movement

• 1986 Superfund Amendments Reauthorization Act
  passes.
• 1990 Amended Clean Air Act of 1970 passes.
• 1996 Total safety management (TSM) concept is
  introduced.

14
Milestones in the Safety Movement

• 2000 U.S. firms begin to pursue ISO 14000
  registration for environmental safety management.
• 2003 Workplace terrorism is an ongoing concern of
  safety health professionals.
• 2007 Safety of older people reentering the
  workplace becomes an issue.

15
Tragedies and Change

• Safety and health tragedies in the workplace have
  greatly accelerated the pace of the safety
  movement in the U.S.
• Three of the most significant were the Hawks
  nest, asbestos, and Bhopal tragedies.

16
Hawks Nest Tragedy

• The Great Depression was indirectly responsible
  for the attention given to an occupational
  disease that came to be known as silicosis.
• This was a disease that caused lung damage from
  breathing silica.
• Showed up on pre-employment physicals resulting
  from people changing jobs.

17
Hawks Nest Tragedy

• A company was given a contract to drill a
  passageway through a mountain in West Virginia.
• Workers spent as many as 10 hours a day breathing
  the dust created by the drilling and blasting.
• This mountain had an unusually high silica
  content.

18
Hawks Nest Tragedy

• Silicosis is a disease that normally takes 10 to
  30 years to show up in exposed workers.
• At Hawks Nest, workers were dying in as little
  time as a year.
• By the time the project was completed, hundreds
  had died.

19
Asbestos Menace

• Once considered a miracle fiber.
• In 1964, at a conference it was revealed that
  this material was killing workers.
• Was first linked to lung cancer and respiratory
  diseases.
• Was one of the most widely used materials in the
  U.S.

20
Asbestos Menace

• Found in homes, schools, offices, factories,
  ships and even in the filters of cigarettes.
• In the 1970s and 1980s, asbestos became a
  controlled material.

21
Bhopal Tragedy

• 1984 Union Carbide Chemical plant in Bhopal,
  India suffered a major plant failure.
• Over 40 tons of methyl isocyanate leaked out and
  killed more than 3,000 people.
• As many as 50,000 additional people were exposed
  to the poisonous gas

22
Bhopal Tragedy

• The company was accused of criminal negligence,
  corporate prejudice, and avoidance.
• Provided incentive for the passage of stricter
  safety legislation worldwide.
• In the U.S. led to the passage of the Emergency
  Planning Community Right-to-Know Act
  (EPCRA)-1986

23
Role of Organized Labor

• Worked to overturn anti-labor laws relating to
  the safety in the workplace.
• The fellow servant rule - held that employers
  were not liable for workplace injures that
  resulted from the negligence of other employees.

24
Role of Organized Labor

• Contributory negligence - if the actions of
  employees contributed to their own injures, the
  employer was absolved of any liability.
• Assumption of risk - theory that people who
  accept a job assume the risks that go with it.

25
Accident Prevention Programs

• There are many different types of accident
  prevention programs - simple to complex.
• Widely used accident prevention techniques
  include failure minimization, fail-safe designs,
  isolation, lockouts, screening, personal
  protective equipment, redundancy, and timed
  replacements.

26
Accident Prevention Programs

• In the 1800s employers had little concern for
  the safety of workers.
• Between WW I and WW II, industry discovered the
  connection between quality and safety.
• During WW II there were severe labor shortages.

27
Accident Prevention Programs

• Employers could not afford to lose workers to
  accidents.
• This realization created a greater openness
  towards increasing worker safety.
• Improved engineering could prevent accidents.
• Employees were willing to learn and accept safety
  rules.

28
Accident Prevention Programs

• Safety rules could be established and enforced.
• Financial savings from safety improvement could
  be reaped by savings in compensation and medical
  bills,
• Early safety programs were based on the three Es
  of safety - engineering, education, and
  enforcement.