Document 3oE369kjjbBV1dNpJX53QLEa

MAR-27 --90 T U E 16 : 5 3 LARRY MADEKSHOj ATTORNEY r*. DUST CONTROL THROUGH ORGANIZED RESEARCH R . -* 1 V "5 JSfct - i-- MANY a small plant owner is in sympathy with the movement to reduce dust, but he does not have the financial resources to plunge into the prob- lem. What can he do about it? i should like to call to your attention the problem of the large plant as contrasted with the little fel low in organizing a dust control program. A con crete illustration may give us the picture better than anything else. Let's make up, therefore, a composite of the best parts of several programs now being carried out by several good-sized companies. In point of fact, no one company can be paraded as perfect, but we can imagine that such a faultless organization actually does exist, and w shall label it "Consolidated Cor poration." In 1931, Consolidated Corporation was buying sand from a nearby sand plant. The sand plant was small in size, having about 100 men on its payrail. All of a sudden, at the depths of the depres sion, the sand operators were faced with silicosis claims presented by former employees, amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Alarmed at the catastrophe that had befallen its neighbor, Con solidated Corporation quite naturally wondered how clean its own backyard was, for although it had escaped the "ambulance chasers," the fact re mained that it handled tons and tons of silica sand --a potential hazard. This urge for self-examination was born in the hffttl department of Consolidated Corporation, and this is the first important fact to bear in mind. tisf un S vSj t, SUicoaU Unknown Silicosis was just as new to the large company as to the sand company, and everything had to be learned from scratch. First of all, a committee was made up of a member of the legal department, a member of the insurance department, and a mem ber of the executive department. This board of strategy was appropriately labeled "Hygiene Com mittee." The help of the engineering department was so licited in making a study to see if a silica hazard actually did exist. Generous sums were spent on laboratory apparatus, and Public Health Reprint No. 1523 on the impinger was practically, mem orized. The only man who had had microscope ex perience was drafted from another important engi neering survey and put on dust-counting in the company's plants from coast to const. Dust samples showed that control equipment was needed at certain jobs, and the Hygiene Committee IS - -a "V<, vfcVa>jJ2 had to hire an engineer to devote full time to these activities. Thus the Committee had a full-time lawyer and a full-time engineer marshalled against the dust men ace. It should be noted that the legal department not only saw the need of dust control, but took the initiatirc in pushing it. is .-i/ Aa irtduit'iil hy^itrn Ubr4ry of --n LIN I Mur, net C. Importance oi Dust Counts Engineering work included the spotting of dust exposures through dust counts. Then as control measures, bins were vented, hoppers were hooded, R-27-90 TUE 1TZ00 LARRY MADEKSHO, ATTORMEV R. 2 %and*conveyor transfer points were enclosed. Ex instituted pre-employment examinations. The task haust systems were installed where needed. A sys of finding satisfactory X-ray machines in some of tem of monthly maintenance reports was set up, the smaller towns was in itself difficult, and some with copies going to the plant manager and the plants had to transport their men over 200 miles general offices. With no rule-of-thumb data available to give the proper volumes and air velocities for the exhaust for the X-ray, thus adding to the expense. Periodic check-up examinations on new employees were car ried out. systems, field tests were made with experimental "Playing with Dyaanite" hoods and a portable exhaust fan. In some in Throughout this period, which we called the first stances, worthwhile information was obtained in phase, there was a feeling of tenseness, of playing this way, but in others, the field tests interfered so with dynamite, for every precaution had to be taken much with plant operation and took so much of the to stifle any outburst of false personal injury claims time of the already short-handed maintenance de such as had beset some other companies. The situa partments, that the tests were not practical. tion was paradoxical; on the one hand, each plant Respirators had already been furnished years ago of Consolidated Corporation had to be instructed in --and these, incidentally, were as good as the mar the dangers of silica dust so as to be fully aware of ket afforded at that time. what genuine hazard existed; When the Bureau of Mines but on the other hand, mention issued its respirator schedule of the word "silicosis" was made No, 21, Consolidated Corpora in hushed whispers for fear tion adopted approved devices. some less scrupulous person Every man was given two res might say "Here's where I can pirators, each marked with his cash in." This difficult situation number so that they could be cleaned on alternate days. A man will really wear a respir ator conscientiously when he existed because silicosis at that time was not under the Compen sation Laws of' any State in which Consolidated operated. knows he gets his orni back, cleaned every day. You can see that these me chanics of dust control are not novel. To put them into prac tice, however, was a story of another color. It was a story many authors of technical pa pers skip over hurriedly. Dust control work out in Consoli dated's plants was not* so much "engineering" as just plain "sell The legal department worked with industrial organizations, la bor groups and insurance com panies, in bringing pressure to bear on State legislatures so that one by one silicosis was brought under (workmen's) compensa tion and taken away from the juiy. As each state enacted a compensation law, with its at tendant assurance of fair play, a huge sigh of relief was passed. ing*" Every-one from the plant manager down to the janitor had Mt| iprty fwft. NfU Dust Abatement Ftnuenent to be "sold" on the reasons for keeping down dust. l*p until now. the position of the Hygiene Committee was quite irregular. Here First Lin* of Attccic was an cnphiccr attached to the it(/al department With the expansion of business that followed the and assigned to work that had industrial heuIt It as depression, industry blossomed out with new bins, its prime end. Thus, legal, engineering and medical new elevators, new drills, new machine tools, and activities were cavried on in one room, but there even whole new plants, and Consolidated 'Corpora was no space to fit this room into the company's tion was no exception. A rare opportunity was house. From an organization point of view, dust here afforded to design this new equipment and abatement work was a "pain in the neck" when these structures with the thought in mind of mak- it came to tying it in logically with some depart np them dust-free. The help of equipment manu ment of the company. The remedy was found, facturers was enlisted, and the slight extra cost however, when the personnel department of tinentailed in the vendible designing of a dust-free tool company took over this work and incorporated it inll invested. No other approach to the prob lem is so fundamental nor so productive as this. s`-u * linc of attack which should be followed by in health and safety, good housekeeping medical service and employee relations program that it was already carrying on, Dust control work was not Pl,,'chftsing anything from a one-inch merely "lodged" in the personnel department but w n building. was permanently built into it and today the com e nv?diea! side of the picture, Consolidated pany's safety program includes not only accident < < < MAR-27--90 TUE 17:01 LARRY MADEKSHO, ATTORNEY R . 43 ^ prevention bvit occupational disease prevention. With the program now in its fifth year, the third era of Consolidated^ experience is dawning. What was born a? a "pain in the neck," has now grown into a full-fledged interest in occupational disease in genera!, not merely silicosis. The trend is shown by pre-employment examinations for everyone, and the increasing use of voluntary periodic examina tions. It is reflected in a different type of plant doctor; he is no longer just a bone-setter, but an industrial physician on the lookout for both acci dental and health injuries. It is further reflected by a better understanding of the purpose of physical examinations. Their chief function is to aid the personnel director in placing the individual who has some disability in a job for which he is physi cally suited. Their function is not, of course, to weed out from industiy eveiy individual who has a physical disablement. While the actual amount of money that Consoli dated Corporation has spent on these three phases of its silicosis problem is unknown, it is easy to see that salaries, equipment, consultant's fees, and ex penses of other kinds during the 5-year period have amounted to a very considerable sum. Such a pro gram is too rypensiev for a mall plant. Although everyone is "in sympathy with the movement,'' the wherewithal is not always to be found. politan, Travelers and others, have an engineering and medical service that is outstanding. Industrial trade associations, like the American Foundvymen's Association, have done yeoman serv ice in making available material on dust control to their members. The American Society of-Heating and Ventilating Engineers, The American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American Stand ards Association, through committees, have crys H*lp for Small Plan)* tallized the thought of the authorities on partic ular engineering phases. ASA Code 29 on factors There must be some agency that a small plant can involved in the fundamental design of exhaust sys turn to. some clearing house that will tell it what tems, is a bible for any engineer who delves into it's all about. Fortunately, today we can name such this phase of the work. agencies. Many are still in swaddling clothes, but With the burst of interest of state legislatures in the infants are husky. occupational disease, many states have set up bu First, recognition should be given to the old- reaus of occupational disease for the sendee of in timers who were well established long before the dustiy. depression bred the silicosis "racket " The United In addition to these, there are at least two Stales Public Health Sen-ice. for one, has for years developments that are backed by industry itself. been vitally concerned with industrial health condi One is the Occupational Diseases Research Depart- tions, Dr. R. H. Sayers' Division of Industrial Hy ment of Northwestern University. This unit began * giene handles specific problems of industrial com to function last November and has a dispensary panies with amazing skill and much patience. clinic to which any case claiming occupational dis The Bureau of Mines, likewise, for years has ease can be referred. An excellent aspect of the studied dust conditions*, especially in the mineral plan is that the staff spends half its time in the re and allied industries. The Director is constantly search department and half out in the plants malt tackling specific problems that are of general appli ing industrial surveys. Its first symposium was cation. held last September. Two other leaders through seniority and accom plishment are the Harvard School of Public Health Air Hygiene Foundation and the Saranac Laboratory. The other development is the Air Hygiene Foun- Insurance Participation I dation, of which Harry Meller is managing director, \ with offices in Pittsburgh. The Foundation is unique ] i One of the most fruitful sources of information 1 because al! phases of the hygiene problems are for the small company is its insurance carrier. In considered--engineering, medical, and legal. It wr. surance companies like the Aetna, American Mu incorporated at the end of 1S33, after a year of tual. Employer* Mutuals. Liberty Mutual. Metro / preparation, and its initial assignment, which has MAR-27-90 TUE 1 T : 0 2 LARRY MADEKSHO .. ATTORNEY R. 4 '' '* jus: drawn to a close, was to gather together the \/nrta relating to silicosis in all its phases, and to evaluate them, The results are three reports: engi- ' ' neering, medical, and legal. They are of unusual merit, and could only have been obtained by the pooling of resources and united action in the part of recognised authorities who compose the three committees. This fact-finding survey showed many chinks in the structure of silicosis knowledge that needed to be filled in by further research. A research program has now been drawn up by the Foundation in the light of this first survey, and with the(sponsoring of this, the Foundation has taken its second step. Special Problems Handled Special problems of members are dealt with by the Foundation 'which is well equipped for this service because of the "exhaustive library that has been assembled and because of the ability of the members of its technical committees. Membership in the Foundation is open to any in dustrial company for a fee that is scaled according to payroll. "Reprinted from SAFETY ENGINEERING MAGAZINE, November, 1937" ( (