Document O3Gzk64d0BNQxZ0ZeD9m8L2Zp
110 Ttvcnty-fifth National Safety Congress
--interesting influences of national scope, such as bank holidays.
Chairman Boulet: Elections and world scries?
Mr. Lexander: Right. Mr. Beck: 1 disagree with the state* mtnt about the foreman doing safety woric on a part-time basis. A foreman will do it in his own de partment. yes. but yon arc Interested in the whole plant. If you have a small plant you can maintain interest with a part-time safety man. but only if he is given responsibility. Chairman Boolet: 1 think that clinches the part-time Question: In a large plant a fad-time man is necessary, and in a small plant a part-time man can do a good job and maintain interest, provided he is definitely given the responsibility and authority.
Mr. Tomer (Bethlehem Steel): What influence has the depression had on the let-down of safety?
Mr. Webb: A great deal, because our executives, even though they were safety minded and thought a great deal of safe ty. neglected it daring the depression.
Safety effort reached bottom during those years, bat 1 think it is coming back fast. It is regaining executive assistance and support, and that is what you must have to maintain interest in safety.
You must have a two-fisted executive who will go down the line and say. MI am for safety, and I am going to liave it r*
Chairman Boulet: Does a continued good record cause a let-down in safety?
F. M. Pepper (Illinois Bell Telephone Company): There is a danger of that. 1 am not a very strong advocate of con tests. and the reason ties right in with that. I think there should be some form of appreciation of a job well* done,
whether it is safety or something else, but I don't think we should pick out the safety job particularly and pin saucers and medals *nd other things on men's chests just because they did something the>* should be doing: and that goes for the supervisory people just as it does for the workers.
A continuous and successful safety pro gram brings a danger of getting con tented with what we arc doing. The win ning of too many contests will lead to
that to some extent, and it takes an ener getic executive to keep prodding us, to keep us out of that situation.
K. P. Heyne (Industrial Commission of Ohio): I disagree. In Ohio we are interested tn the community type of safety campaign, and in Cleveland some years ago we started a safety campaign among all the industries. We had 307 companies. This year on October 1 we completed our sixth annual campaign with 1.400 Cleveland companies. If there is any way - to maintain interest, and if there is any way to keep from getting too satisfied with a safety record. 1 believe this is one way of doing it
Kot only has it proved successful in industry but also in vehicle fleet man agement.
As a matter of fact, the company that won in Cleveland this year has now won first place four times ont of six years; and it employs 1.800 men. and works close to 000.000 hours, without a single losttime accident.
I befieve that the number of companies participating--307 m 1931. 500 in 1932, 650 in 1933. 715 in 1934, 1,100 in 1935. and 1,650 in 1936--is enough to bear out the value of the contest.
George Hanley (Perfect Circle Co.. Hagerstown. Jnd.): I tbink the Questrun of lack of interest m safety is measured by how busy the firm is. Thh old ques
tion of dollars and cents enters into safety more than anything else, and when we have licked that, we have licked the whole problem. When the departments of a plant get so busy that they just haven't got time for safety, that is when accidents happen.
When management and men really be come interested in safety, not from a safety angle, but from the angle of peo ple going home whole and unhurt and wet! and in their normal condition, then we will have real safety; but until then, there isn't any contest nor anything of that sort Chat wiR answer the purpose.
Mr. Beck: We have been conductings safety contest for 10 years, and If I were asked to discontinue everything but one thing. I would hold onto the safety con test.
One of the large rubber companies has just established a record of 6J0Q0J000 man hours without a fast-lime accident Inter est has been stimulated through the rub-
Interest in Safety
111
ber section contest, and not a man can of the management, nor of the men, but
afford to break that record. They are on of you. the safety engineer.
their Coes all the time. Bring in crutches?
Dust off your bookshelves, read up on
No, sir.
safety, and you will be able to stimulate
The contest b based on compensable more Interest among your men than a
accidents; and where money b spent, it safety contest can do.
counts against their experience. They
To keep Interest stimulated in a man.
cannot cheat. The contest is tight and we must understand the individual. We
sound. It b based on their improvement must know his domestic troubles, and on their previous three-year average, and sympathise with him. give him advice,
they are all competing with themselves and nobody else.
T. E. Ughtfooi: Why should we run contests in our plant, with only 250 men? We know their families, and we know these men. We simply tel! them. "Don't get hurt, whether it b accidental or wil ful or anything else.**
and not mistreat the confidence he has in us. When a safety engineer accom plishes this, he wilt not have a problem of stimulating interest.
Chairman Boulet: "What b the proper method of approach to the workers to in
spire interest in safety?** Mr. Sanford: With various types of
individuals the same method isn't going
We don't say that contests are no good, but my point is that they should be used in a program if they fit If you can pre vent injuries without contests, why not
to work. Suppose yon have some ruling that you would like to put through in the plant. You may start with your general supervisory committee and discuss it
do it?
Then let each one of those men go back
You know what happens to production to the group of which he is chairman
any time the supervisory staff loses in and discuss the thing, asking, "What do
terest in it Down it goes; and if it b you think of it?** Then sell the idea to
true what we have been told for the last the next group, and so on, until you get
five or ten years, that safety and produc to the workmen's committee. Get their
tion go hand in hand, then why try to slant and bring it right back to the man
separate them and run safety as a pro agement. When the order comes out,
gram or contest or something of that you will find these fellows saying, "There
son, when you don't do it and don't have is something f had a hand m.**
to do It with production?
Get them to express their opinions,
Chairman Boulet: How many think and you may sen the idea to them with
contests are sD right? How many are out their realising that U is coming from
opposed? The ayes have it
the top down. Another rather old-time method b the
T. A. Schlatscr (Davison Chemical Co-. workmen's safety committee. 1 know of
Baltimore, Md.): The main instrument one plant that arbitrarily picked out one
for the prevention, not of accidents, but man from ten. right down to the Door, of personal Injury, fa education. If we telling him he was on the safety commit
conduct a contest, we don't do it for di tee. It was his job as long as there were
rect commercial value, but for advertising no accidents.
value: and from that advertising we re
It was surprising how accidents de
ceive safety education. If you ean do this, creased immediately. Each man was tak
by all means use your safety contest.
ing care of his brothers as well as him
But if the manager of a plant puts an injured man to work pushing a broom to keep him from considering it a lost time accident, he is not kidding anyone but himself. The only valuable ^ information we get from a safety contest is how much better we are doing our job than we have done it before, and how much bet ter than the other fellow in the same line of work. If we are losing interest in our safety organisation, it b not the fault
self. V. I. Calkin (American Seating Com
pany): Sometimes these methods come from the men themselves. In our plant
the men suggested that each foreman ap point one or two men in cadi department, for one month, to be the safety com mittee in that department. It was decided to try it for one month, and the results were such that the plan was used for a whole year. So far this year we have