Document 6E2R3BdpmeVrj1JVDXbV6L3g

FILE NAME: Abex (ABX) DATE: 1947 Nov 20 DOC#: ABX027 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION: Published Address of the 12th Annual Meeting of the Industrial Hygiene Foundation velopcs to directly reflect their individual contriby tions to company success. They do not want an outsider trying to regulate by limitations their dail production, and thereby put a roof on their day's paJ I hope our men will stand up and reallyi;fight anyone who tries by such methods to limit their incomes. * ' I hope I have been successful in giving you a picture of your new neighbor. Walter Hoffman and J are happy to be here. We want your good opinion. We are determined to do whatever we reasonably can to rate your good will. When you ask us to do something, we intend to answer "Yes" if it is a possibility. We want you to know that we are as interested in the welfare of Elyria as we are in building Electro-Alloys into one of the city's outstanding companies. We feel that this new plant is the best in its in dustry. We hope Elyria is going to be just a little bit proud of it --as we are proud of being here in Elyria. This talk was given at the Annual Dinner of the Chamber of Commerce, Elyria, Ohio, April 23,1947. The occasion was the completion of the new Electro-Alloys Division foundry in Elyria. [34] The retirement systems of today do a lot of things 10 many of us. With my sixty-first milestone just around the bend of the road, the sixty-fifth seems much too near. Although retirement may not actu ally happen on that birthday, at such an age more and more you think in terms of retirement, more and more you think of yourself sitting before the fire looking back on the years of your work life, thinking of your associates of those years, wondering what has hap pened as to this and that plan, feeling what a thrill it would be to go back and be an important part of it all once more. I can see myself sitting at home, walking in the country, lying awake with twinges of gout or bursitis; talking with some old codger who at least seems will ing to listen for a while; reviewing our company's successes, recounting some of our failures. In my case that review will cover thirty-seven years already behind me. The long period behind is now out of reach; and the period of future opportunities seems all too brief. Such thoughts make a man all the more anxious to give the best he has toward making his company a better place for the people who work in it and for the stockholders who own it. Visualizing your period of looking back, you think even more than before in terms of the people with whom you have worked. You know there are still left endless ways you can contribute toward their welfare. And all of us know none of these is more important [M] than making our companies healthier, safer places to work. Industrial Hygiene has up to recently been years and years behind medicine. That distance has been greatly shprtened. But we in industry aye still lagging. The organization which is our host today and you assembled here are continually giving us in industry new tools to use in making our plants and offices healthier places. Our job is to put them to use with high zeal. I understand little of the technical. I am trying to find better ways for us in management to emphasize the human side. Knowing only one company, I must talk about Brake Shoe experiences. All companies have much in common. I would like to talk about our company's failures and successes in trying to progress in making each of our plants a better place to work. One fact must be admitted at the outset --our failures have been and still are due to management weaknesses, whereas our successes have come in the main from the Medical Department's successes in its fight for proper recognition of medical facts, the need for medical safeguards. Our company is one with many small plants --60. of them. Forty-two are foundries, lh e plants are scattered. In"other wordsTThe management problems are multiplied to an unusual degree. As an example, forty-two foundry superintendents must be made dust conscious, and must sincerely believe that safer work ing conditions warrant higher costs, if higher costs are inescapable. Also, and even more important, they must be convinced that the bosses all up the line be lieve just that. Edmund Burke said "no cold relation is a zealous citizen." We recognize that no supervisor who is cold [36] to the health of his men is a good boss. The looks of g plant, the types of its accidents, show up "cold" indifference. Like most companies we have been carrying on a safety program for years. There was a Safety Depart ment when I was hired. Looking back, I feel that its establishment had mostly to do with costs. If the monthly reserve for accident insurance could be re duced, costs would be reduced and the prospect for profits improved. The top management was inter ested in its people, but the drive on plant supervision was in terms of plant costs, not in terms of humanities, plants were full of unnecessary hazards. T he overall record was bad. SAFETY A GOOD INVESTMENT Only in recent years have we realized that any amount of expense which makes a plant safer is a good investment. Only in recent years have we real ized that to progress in that there must be at the top a willingness to spend generously for safety, and in each plant genuine enthusiasm for safety on the part of all supervisors. Today we do not think a superin tendent or foreman who has not that kind of enthu siasm is fully qualified for his job. Ability or know how is no longer the only qualification for boss jobs; intelligent concern for the welfare of the workers is one of the additions to the requirements. Also, we have time and again found that the kind of person who heads the Safety Department is all important. He must be a fine person with a high sense of the com pany's responsibility to its people, and, even more, he must feel his personal responsibility to them. He must have top qualities of leadership. Also, he should be part of the President's Department. [ 37] In oui company the man happens to be our Trea surer. This extra burden --and it is a big one --obvi ously did not automatically go with the Treasurer' job. It was the man, not the position, which dictated his selection some years ago. But he,,cannot succeed unless his top man, the company's doctor, has all of the many necessary qualifications. As all of you know, the setting up of a Medical Department in a company is only step number one -- and time soon proves it to be about the only easy step. In a company such as ours, whose 60 plants average only 150 employees, selling the importance of the plan to our 600 people in supervision is the really tough part. T o succeed here requires toughness all the way up the management line of authority, and also all the way down that line. But we believe we owe it to all our people to be as tough as necessary. Our Hygiene Department --we call it Medical -- started in 1932 with the employment of an experi enced industrial woman doctor. We learned much about Brake Shoe from her. Her reports included such frank items about our various foundries as -- "The salient features of this foundry are its remark ably neat and orderly aspects --and the total ab sence of any washing facilities." Another --"The toilet and changing facilities in this foundry are adequate --but there are no pro visions for washing." Still another --"One woman works in the core room and has for many years. There is no woman's toilet." Yes, we did learn about Brake Shoe from our first doctor! Through the route of plant X-raying of our people, and dust counts, many needed improvements were uncovered and made. Looking back, I realize that in that period we had little conception of how [38] far we fell short in giving our people proper working conditions. An earthquake did the trick, and I am still ashamed of the fact that it was a money scare which woke us up. The year was 1933. The company was in red ink for the first time in history. Returning from a plantvisiting trip to the Pacific Coast, a telegram was handed to me after the train left Omaha. It read -- "Thirty-four silicosis suits totalling $2,700,000 have been filed in behalf of Chicago Heights employees." I had a lot more hours of train ride to think that overl Visualizing the possibilities on the money side --this was only one of our then 39 foundries --our tangible net worth was under $25,000,000. From the human side we in management thought we were doing a job of making our plants proper places to work. But the question on that train was --were we? Then for a while I comforted myself with the racket angle. Some lawyer had spent lots of time building up the group and organizing this suit. On the other side were the questions: Were we really going all-out in eliminating danger? Did we as yet realize just what were the "possibles" in working conditions for our men? The answer to that was a definite "N o." On that train trip from Omaha I decided that it was time we went to school and really learned how to ac complish the "possibles" in industrial health. During the next period of months we did not enjoy those law suits. Today I say they were one of the best things that could have happened to us and especially to me, a fairly new chief. From then on, improve ments in working conditions began to get top priority in our company. In recent years we have never been satisfied for one moment, and I hope our company's management never will be. Right now we are com pleting the abolishment of five bad foundries. [39] YESTERDAY'S FOUNDRIES And that leads me to take a minute to remind ou selves what terrible places foundries used to be, Dur ing vacations while in college, forty years ago j worked two summers in a small machine shop which had, as one o f its lean-tos, an iron foundry in whicl I also worked at times. It was probably worse than the average, but I am sure it was typical of many of the old-time foundries. The pay rates were about the lowest, and the working conditions the poorest in that vicinity. It was hard work. It was extremely hazard ous work. ' For illumination molders had a smoky kerosene torch, A hand shakeout method made it possible for them to breathe in the maximum of dust. The metal was all carried with hand ladles from the cupola to the molds over a floor as uneven as a pasture. There were no wash rooms. In the winter, a piece of hot metal was tossed into a bucket of water when it came time to wash up. T he toilet facilities were the great outdoors. Heating a foundry in winter was unheard of. It was not unusual to build a fire on a heap of sand in the morning, especially after a few days' shutdown, before starting to mold. Part of the inherent resistance of young men to a foundry job today comes out of this past history. A foundry was really an awful place to work. This gen eration still hears of the terrible bums suffered by molders of those early days. The toughness necessary to be a foundry worker was real. There are still some foundries in this country with disgraceful conditions. We have a bad record to live down. But today the foundry can be as healthy, as clean a place to work as any machine shop. It is slow in building, especially , for foundries, but it can be done. Modern mechaniza- [40] ! tion has even come close to eliminating the tired backs 0f yesterday. And the modern foundry is clean and healthy, thanks to management's having been awakened to the situation, and to the fine work being carried on by the ! industrial Hygiene Foundation, which has formu lated standards and suggested methods and practices by which these standards can be achieved. It has given us practical specifications for "a better place to work," and it will be our shame if our plants fall short. A NEW FOUNDRY CONCEPT We need not only better working conditions but the best possible working conditions. Today, you and we have a new conception of what the foundry ought to be. First, irrespective of expense, we must eliminate the silicosis and lead poison hazards. Every ; part of every plant must be better lighted than even the expert says is necessary. Every possible safety haz ard, irrespective of cost, must be eliminated. There must be cleanliness, good air and the best temperature possible to maintain. There must be as little lifting and carrying as pos sible. There must be a decent wash and locker room, with ventilation so that men can shower and change clothes in comfort, and not have to put on damp work clothes tomorrow. There must be a clean place to eat. As far as is humanly and mechanically possible, our job is to give each man conditions we should like, were we working in his place. This is not only a human , obligation; it is the only way we can gather into our working forces decent, competent young men --the only way we can successfully compete for them with other industries. Fundamentals are such today that competition as [41 ] wage rates has been largely eliminated. But tjler still a basis of keen competition --"A better dI C work." ^ Ce If you "rate" the best people in the trades you need idually you will get them. As you do, costs Will be ected and profits improved. Management has al- ys known the importance of right people. In the Idays you went out and looked for them. In recent irs we have realized that to get them we must earn : reputation of being "a better place to work." l n : future, no plant will "rate" the best people with :a successful medical department, f we are really sincere in this objective, manage- nt will be afraid not to give the Hygiene Depart- nt what it requests and needs for the successful ration of its program. For most of our foundries las meant and will continue to mean, as medical >wledge advances, large capital expenditures. Re- tly I saw the cost of hygiene work last year in our iparadvely small company. It seemed a lot --and n I thought back to that train trip from Omaha l was a little pleased. n the old days when a capital expense was recom- nded, directors would ask: "Will this reduce costs?" `Will it increase capacity?" Today the attitude is erent. We know there are many capital expendi- es we cannot afford not to make, although of them- 'es they neither reduce costs nor increase produc i. irst among these are the plant changes which make lthier working conditions. As an example, we fin ' have reached the point where the purchase of ex- tsive additional heating units, made necessary by re rapid exhaustion of the air, have ceased to be expected. In our own new Elyria, Ohio foundry, in lition to exhausting at the source, a complete [ 42] change of atmosphere occurs every six minutes. On the shore of Lake Erie this does mean lots of heat units I are necessary in the winter. That small plant is i equipped with five hydroclones having a total capacity of 85,000 cubic feet of air per minute. Each week we j remove 60 cubic feet of sludge. This represents a great volume of fine dust which in the old days would have been circulating in the foundry atmosphere, coming to rest mostly on beams, sills and floors to circulate again when the wind changed or such resting places could not hold more. By and large, business problems are either arith metical or human. Even if you are good with figures the human side gives more of interest, more disap pointments, but to many of us most satisfaction. KNOWING COMPANY PEOPLE Since the time I started in Brake Shoe, the Presi dent's job has greatly changed. In the early period his most important responsibility, and it took a very large portion of his time, was selling. Today's number one concentration is the problem of company people. It is now more important to concentrate on knowing them than on knowing customers. This human side seems fuller of seemingly unsolvable problems than does sales management. We must build our human relations on the basis of the debt a company owes the people who make its success. This indebtedness is definite. It must and can be met. The first requirement is to give men the right kind of bosses --decent fellows whom the men under them know to be square shooters. Such a boss has to be a fine human being if men are to like and respect him. They must feel he will fight his own boss, if that is [43] I m necessary, to better their lot. He must be willing to stick his neck out for his men where necessary. These qualities are even more important today in supervi sory positions than technical know-how. Making a company "a better place to work" in volves a respect for the ideas and suggestions of every one to the point of being willing to try any suggestion that seems even a fair gamble. Where possible, em ployees should be consulted before making changes which directly affect them. A good example was af forded in our Denver plant where the Industrial Hygiene Department designed a downdraft for a chip ping bench. At the suggestion of our Industrial Hy gienist, the man working on this bench was consulted for his recommendations as to the height of the bench and other details. He was pleased. This practice gives the man a very personal stake in the change and he is likely to strive that much harder towards its success. We have had just the opposite experience at many plants where for example the men have not been told why it is important to keep upper windows closed, with the result that they go around opening these windows, thus short-circuiting the entire ventilating system. A management habit of treating every suggestion, every idea, with respect, gives every man the feeling of being an important part of his department --gives him something to talk about that night at home. BUILDING INTEREST IN HYGIENE A large portion of my time is spent visiting plants. My average has been fifty such visits each year -- to an average of thirty-five different plants. Backing the safety and hygiene departments is one of the prime objects. If the President himself runs into shortcom- [44] ings, that does help. At each place there is time for a talk with our nurse in the presence of the superin tendent. With him there you get a chance to strength en her hand --slip her an ace or two. You can tell her how important to the company are the human things she can do for company people. As our plants are small she gets many opportunities to help the families, and you discuss this, trying to increase the amount of such help. Before going there you get tips on where she excels and where she falls down on her own "possibles." It is important to remind her that we have no better line of communication with com pany families than through her. They talk with her frankly. Every opportunity she gets to help in the home, makes a closer tie with our people. When you can help a wife or a child in that home you are help ing to build a better future in human relations. When company doctors or nurses help in a super visor's family you speed cooperation many-fold. One foreman, back after a two-year battle with tubercu losis said, "Except for Dr. Hamlin I would never have worked again." There is a man who will help build our safety and hygiene success. There is no better route to improving foremen's attitude toward their men than building interest in their health and safety, and their line of communica tion is clearest when they talk with the man about his family and their health. If that is your objective do not try doing hygiene work by edict. It can only be done by teaching. Before j you can do a good job of teaching, you must know your students. The Medical Department must know the men in plant supervision or they'll get nowhere. That is rule number one if you doctors and hygienists are sincerely earnest in your work. The department's approach must be teaching --a minimum of telling. [45] SPNY 005173 Remember, you teach a subject in which everyone is interested. That makes it easier. You know your sub ject but in teaching, you will accomplish little unless your student understands the fundamentals and is successfully sold on their importance. Often, talking in terms of his family and his friends best' crystallizes the importance of prompt action. Progress is being made when operating people are making suggestions to the Medical Department. What really matters is what happens to the men themselves as they work in your plants. Planning safety and health is the simple part. Making it func tion effectively is another story. It is not only hard, it is harder than hard. It is one of the great challenges to management. There are thrills for you in the pro gress that is made. We know medical research can solve the occupa tional health problems. We in management must effectively put to work their successes. The weak hygiene departments of today lack ability to be effective much more seriously than they lack knowledge of hygiene. In many cases this is because the head does not understand the human elements involved, and in many more cases it is because he has not the effective backing of company officers. There is no greater waste of material than an able medical head in a company where the tops have the right "patter" and the wrong hearts. Actually, the execu tive who isn't deeply interested in eliminating all hazards does not qualify otherwise in this period when human relations are at last getting the recognition due them. MEDICAL DEPARTMENT HURDLES This brings us to our real problem. How are we [46] to make effective today's hygiene knowledge? Let's recite just a few medical department hurdles -- ; First and foremost, of these comes in companies where senior officers do not feel or accept a personal j responsibility for the department's effectiveness, j Second, and as serious, are not only the hurdles but unjumpable fences made by budget controls in many j companies. Time and again budgets are deferring to tomorrow, expenditures which for the men in the company are "musts" today. The resistance which comes from operating people who suspect the medical people of trying to run their show. Lots of other things need doing in a hurry; perhaps the new safety change will be forgotten. A greater operating willingness to gamble on new production ideas than to gamble on the new ventila tion "possibilities" recommended by an industrial hy giene engineer. The lack of efficient and effective follow-up all over the company map. It takes selling ability for this job but so for the family doctor does a "good bedside manner." Should we say in our work "a plant side manner" takes good selling? In a jam, an impartial arbitrator is sometimes neces sary --hence "health" should report to the home office. MEDICAL DEPARTMENT NEEDS i There are many needs: AH the exhaust equipment in the world will not do the job unless it is properly and intelligently used. Foremen must be educated. There must be willing cooperation with local and state public health departments. [47] There must be a willingness to help neighboring plants in every possible way, It is wise to get workers' suggestions, for this helps acceptance of protective equipment where needed. There is the responsibility to pool ideas with hy giene associations. It is the shortest route to evolving satisfactory corrective methods, and thereby providing safe working conditions. T o the extent we can afford we must support scien tific research here as we do product research. Again I say it is important that medical men, their industrial engineers and all on their staffs realize that they face a selling problem. T he best sales people know that their first need is customer's confidence. You in the Medical Department need the confidence of plant supervision. In our company each plant management has clearly shown an attitude of apparent cooperation. Confi dence in the Medical Department continues to grow, but in many places the end result has been and still is procrastination. Tim e and time again changes have been postponed--immediately necessary changes from a human standpoint. There isn't one of those men who is not a fine human being, deeply interested in his people. But it is sometimes difficult to break down habits of mind, especially with the older men who have worked a long time during periods having other yardsticks. Let me illustrate. Each fall our Divisions submit in detail their capital expenditure budgets for the next year. They are classified as "necessary," "advisable" and "optional." For years all items which improve working conditions have, under company policy, rated the "necessary" classification. In spite of that, last fait I found many such expenditures rated as "advisable" or "optional." Again the tendency to postpone. They [ 48] were all reclassified to "necessary" by me, I hope this will not occur again. Certainly some of our operating people will not forget last fall's experience. QUALIFICATIONS MEDICAL DIRECTOR NEEDS I should like to say a word about the kind of Medi cal Director it takes to look after industrial health. He must be tops in medical integrity; more jealous of his standing and reputation as a medical man than his position in the company; unwilling to compromise his medical opinion to conform with ill-advised wishes of the company. He must insist on the adoption by the company of moral standards and ideals in its medical program, and see that these are lived up to --otherwise the em ployees' faith and confidence in the program will completely fail. Obvious examples of this are: (1) A completely frank and open sharing with the employees of physical conditions discovered in health surveys. In Brake Shoe Dr. Hamlin tells silicotics that they have silicosis. (2) A rigid procedure of handling occupational claims solely on the medical factors irrespec tive of personal factors which might point to different handling. (3) A strict observance of the doctor-patient rela tionship. Medical files must be privileged. (4) Physical examinations must not be used for "weeding out." An employee should never be discharged as a result of findings of a physical check-up. However, if essential to his health, a change in type of work often is indicated. Fur ther, a pre-employment examination should be considered as a "preplacement" examination . [ 49] for the express purpose of placing a man at a job which he is physically able to handle. The medical head should be a passionate and tire less combatant in his strife for better working condi tions. He must feel in his soul a responsibility to every man. every wman in the company, and to their fami lies. He must have real qualities of leadership, and also be a damn good fighter if the Hygiene Depart ment is to succeed in its objectives. As between man agement and workers, he must visualize his responsi bility to be that of the workers' representative at the management table. He should be the kind a President takes orders from, and gets a thrill out of backing against opposition --and incidentally it is helpful if the whole organization knows just that. In one year I made three special trips on our com pany doctor's "orders" --twice to Chicago, once to St. Louis. Each time it happened to be impossible to leave New York during the week, so I left Friday and was back on Monday. On these three occasions operat ing departments were either not fully cooperating, or were not in agreement with Dr. Hamlin's proposals. It happens I do not especially prefer such weekend trips, and so in each case arrived rarin' to go. The Medical Department won hands down those three times, and each of our ten divisional operating depart ments heard new proof that top management was behind the Medical Department. How effectively or how badly a medical department functions should be one of the many useful yardsticks for directors when they are wondering whether or not the company needs a new head. After all, the most important part directors have to play in management is promptly removing the senior officer when overall he is found not up to his job --yes, and without wast ing time about it. [50} By the same token, with today's competition for the most intelligent and efficient workers, stockholders cannot long afford directors who do not realize the importance of top health and safety conditions in their ; company's plants, nor managements which do not spend whatever money is necessary to give plant peo ple the maximum of health and safety assurance. In World War I, my place was as an infantry officer. Way back in the winter of 1917-1918, I took the com pany for a workout in a French forest near the front line. Feeling completely worked out myself, a wrist watch proved it was all right to start back to our vil lage. Soon it developed the new captain had lost the company in that forest. Soon there was no doubt about that. Worse, very soon it would be mess time but there still was no proof we were headed in the right direction. It was the same feeling a lot of us in management jobs have today. In the forest there were lots of paths but no signs on any of them. Today, there are many paths to choose from as we try to build better relations within our businesses. Unlike that forest, some of our today's paths have clear signs in unmistakeable English --"To Better Health," "To Greater Safety." There can be no doubt about their leading to better human relations. Let me admit that the "possibles" I have outlined represent high standards --but surely they are not too high. You doctors who practice the profession of In dustrial Hygiene, you who research in this important field, and the Industrial Hygiene Foundation, are blazing a trail to greater security and productivity throughout industry. It is our responsibility to follow you, to make every one of our plants "a better place to work." It was said of Edmund Burke that lie "loved his country because of what he conceived it ought to be, {51} ! as well as for what he held it to be in fact." For us in management there is a crying need to have you in industrial hygiene set your sights high as to what "ought to be" and in the present period keep high your hope, your courage as you see more and more what we are "in fact." I would like to add just a sentence: We are com pletely satisfied with our Medical Head, Lloyd Ham lin. Don't any of you try to steal him. This talk was the keynote address of the 12th Annual Meeting of the Industrial Hygiene Foundation. It was delivered on November 20,1947 at the Mellon Institute in Pittsburgh, Pa. I 52 ] Our Nurses and Their Opportunity I During a lot of week-ends, I have sat at my home 1 desk trying to work out what I would say to you to night about your job. Sunday a few weeks ago, while walking with our Scottie and our Welsh Terrier, I awoke to the fact that in their fundamentals, your job and mine are alike. First, we both must try to be available whenever needed. Second, we must concen trate on trying to make the company a better place for its people and give this effort all the extras we have in the way of imagination and effort. We need to keep constantly in mind what Francis Bacon said many years ago: "Good thoughts are little better than dreams except they be put into action." Your occupa tion, like mine, gives opportunities to make real for others, dreams we have had for ourselves. In an effort to be available, I keep my time as free as possible for company people. Away from the office, traveling or on a vacation, our people can always reach me. I try to give each whatever part of my time he may need. My part in their problem mostly is to relate their consideration to overall plans and policies. My experience has been sufficiently a mixed one so j there is always the chance something out of the past can supply them with a different angle of approach. So it seems to me that, like you, my place is to be available when needed. In comparison with my job, as a nurse your being on hand is more important. You can in times of [53] 'P ip