Document byRnRRkRvxqowMYobZdmgdnG0

FILE NAME: National Safety Council (NSC) DATE: 1968 DOC#: NSC494 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION: NSC Presentation by Nader - Occupational HazardsMaking the Invisible Visible a / a $6u - ........... x? J J 1:i5 ~i J R. 'isa > % > F*% hjia .b b g*** tI*ry NATIONAL SAFETY CONGRESS TRANSACTIONS LABOR ^ SF SAFETY NATIONAL SAFETY COUNCIL 425 North Michigan Avenue Chicago, Illinois 60611 Labor Sessions Citation fo r Distinguished Sendee to Safety to JU LIU S N. JACOBSEN, Safety Chairman, Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers Local 4-447, Destrehan, La. The judges were impressed with Brother Jacobsen's tenacious efforts on behalf of safety in his local union. The documented material vividly revealed the many extensive activities he promoted and participated in. It also showed the amount of time and energy he unselfishly put forth to promote safety. The judges noted the many areas of ac tivity in which he is engaged, including safety training, and the fact he was not deterred in achieving noteworthy goals. The Awards committee of the Labor Conference warmly commends him for his solid achieve ments. OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS--MAKING THE INVISIBLE VISIBLE By RALPH NADER Attorney, Author, Safety Critic, .New York, N. Y. The chief forms of domestic violence sidered understated--a reason which leads to affecting American working men and women the first of six realities which should be are motor vehicle crashes and occupational recognized publicly before significant prog dangers and diseases. Taken together or ress can be made to. reduce worker injury singly, their toll in death and injury utterly and disease: dwarfs the violence incurred'through street 1. Under-reporting by industrial firms of crimes. While the nation is properly con actual injuries and disease experienced by cerned about street crime, it virtually ig laborers has long been an endemic mana nores the far greater death, injury, and gerial disease. First, the definition of what wage losses on farms, in mines, factories constitutes an injury is decided by an indus and open work areas such as construction try-dominated body called the United States sites. Consider one comparison out of many Standards Institute of America--a group that could be detailed: all the riots in this of industries and industry technical societies. country during the past three years in our Second, companies go to considerable length cities have led to about 260 dead; each to avoid reporting a lost time injury--not working day brings death to 55 workers, only to keep their insurance rates down but disabling injury to 8,500 workers and lesser to preserve their place in safety competi injuries to 27,200 other laborers. Every year, tions. For example, a worker in a Jones & 14,000 to 15,000 workers die, over half a Laughlin steel plant received a groin injury; million are disabled by occupational diseases, he was taken off his usual job and placed in over two million are disabled by occupational a chair where he sat doing nothing for two accidents, and over seven million are injured. weeks. Any blue-collar man knows that The toll is even greater than indicated by such a practice is not unusual in numerous the above data because death through toxic industries. exposure over time to chemicals o r particu 2, Plant physicians surrender to or are late m atter is rarely recorded. The half million plus workers disabled from the ef constrained by corporate dictates as to the exercise of their medical judgment and right fects of asbestos, beryllium, carbon mon to publication of cases in the medical litera oxide, coal dust, cotton dust, cancer-causing chemicals, dyes, pesticides, radiation etc. must ture. A recent case in point involved a Dr. John Zalinsky, a physician at the Brush be taking terminal doses over time from Beryllium plant outside Cleveland, who had some of these exposures. There is another cases of workers suffering from beryllium reason why the above data must be con poisoning and wanted to publish them in a 13 1968 National Safety Congress . medical journal (without mentioning them names, of course). H e was told if he did he would have to look for another job. Tiie doctor had a bad heart and was con cerned about looking for other employment. Before he could do anything, he died of a second' heart attack. and mines, leaving only 827 inspectors for general safety inspection, construction, safety promotion and education, health, and in dustrial hygiene, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (There are almost twice as many fish and game wardens -- about 3,000 --- employed by the states to look out for wildlife.) Four states have no safety in Dr. Lorin E, K err of the United Mine spection staff in any area and 17 other states Workers Welfare and Retirement Fund, an have 10 or less on their safety inspection authority on coal workers' pneumoconiosis staffs. More shocking is the fact that only (or, as the coal dust disease is popularly three states have staffs specializing in the called, "black lung" ), has sharply denounced area of occupational health and industrial "the attitude and influence of employeroriented physicians who avoid facing known facts about the ravages of coal dust in hu man lungs because to do otherwise would cost money. The impact of physician knowl edge and attitudes is apparent in inaccurate or incomplete death certificates. These doc uments are essential for determining the existence of a dangerous dust requiring gov ernmental action for control or eradication. Too often, no records mean no action. Phy sician denial or avoidance of known facts can also determine the publication of infor mation. In 1956, the concern of some physi cians about management attitudes effectively blocked the publication of a paper of mine on coal workers pneumoconiosis in the most widely circulated medical journal in the United States. One can only wonder how many times other medical information vital for the protection of the health of workers has not been published for the same reason. Physician attitudes' also influence other groups such as company lawyers, state legis lators, and officials who, all-told, are remark ably resistant to the elimination or control of coal dust because it would cost money." hygiene. 4. By and large, union leaders have been far too pliable when confronted by manage ment's inaction or decisions regarding worker health and safety. Too often, health and safety conditions are treated as trade-offs for more tangible union gains in wages at the collective bargaining table. This has been the case, for example, with the United Mine W orkers leadership, which finally is becoming slightly aroused over the plight of their workers but little dedicated to over turning coal management's modus operandi that treats coal miners as being less expen sive than coal. Union leaders simply do not give health and safety a first rank pri ority; their lack of aggressive lobbying for the proposed Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1968 in Congress cannot be covered up by resolutions and resonant statements for the records. Labor leaders are wanted on the ramparts, not just on the record. 5. The Federal government has abdicated its responsibility to devote funds toward effective research programs and training programs for occupational health and safety. The Department of Health, Education, and Coal workers' black lung or pneumoconi W elfare (H E W ) has had no sense of the osis affects at least 150,000 active and retired importance of this problem, the need to de miners in advanced stages of lung destruc velop preventive systems and competent med tion. Two thousand men die from this dis ical and engineering personnel. H E W s ad ease in Pennsylvania every year. W hat Dr. vocacy has been weak and, if anything, Kerr was referring to was a critical rupture the occupational health activity in the c- in the recording and communicating of data partment has been downgraded recently. I he by members of the medical profession, one area where H E W has received some 3. State safety laws and regulations are weak, inspection is poor, and penalties rarely imposed. The states spend an average of 40 cents per w o rk e r p e r y e a r on in d u stria l safety. Some states such as Texas and Oklahoma have taken this down to two cents per worker per year. Of the lp24 state inspectors, 697 inspect boilers, elevators consistent funding--$5 million since 1933-- for research on the causes and prevention of coal workers' pneumoconiosis has had little to show for it, apart from a prevalence Study completed three years ago. It is dis maying to note that not only does Western Europe spend twenty times the level on re search in the coal dust disease area, but 14 Labor Sessions control measures are years ahead of this country, which does not even have coal dust standards' in force. 6. The workmen's compensation system in this country--its coverage, benefits, and de terrence--Is creaking with obsolescence. A thorough inquiry is needed and .serious thought should be given to uniformity. Not only -are there irrational or politically in spired differences between states but some states are still mired in a value system of a bygone age. For example, coal miners black lung disease is not considered workrelated by the compensation laws of _all states, except Pennsylvania (1965), Virginia (1968), and Alabama. Such human derelicts, spitting up coal dust', struggling for breath, afflicted with emphysema, massive fibrosis, or enlarged heart, are denied workmen's compensation in such states as W est V ir ginia, Kentucky, Ohio, and Illinois. In Ken tucky, according to the state's Department of Labor, about 1,400 out of 2,000 mines licensed to do business do not comply with the workmen's compensation law for other mine injuries apart from black lung. Yet, the present -governor-and his -predecessor have not considered law and order to be applicable to coal operators. . Where does this leave the- National -Safety Council?' Certainly, it docs no service to truth and candor to hide the fact that*'the Council's industrial members and constitu ency take a strong interest-in-how far th Council goes in the occupational health and safety area. That interest, to -use a mild word, resulted in the Council's being, placed in a difficult position regarding the Occupa tional'Safety and Health Act of 1968. Some observers believed that the Council retracted from a relatively positive position o n . the bill in February to a statement more m consonance with industry's preferences a few months later. For the Council, it is- th e same old dilemma of "to be or not to be' that has plagued its potential independence m other safety areas. If the Council a tor be true to its. potential in occupational health and safety, it cannot ignore at least some of the above-noted problems obstructing progress toward more humane working conditions* LASER BEAM PRECAUTIONS By W ILLIAM McCULLOUGH Collective Agreement & Grievance Officer, Hmptoyees. nntorin Wvdro Emolovees Local 1000, CLC, Toronto, urn. Before we consider the hazards and pre cautions f-or the safe use of the laser beam, we should understand what it is. The name laser is an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. The original concept was invented by Dr. Townes in 1955. In 1958 Dr. TowneS and Dr. A rthur Schawlou gave a paper on how to construct an optical maser. The name maser_ is an acronym for micro-wave _amplification _by stimulated emission of radiation. An optical maser -is a laser. . . In I960 Dr. Theodore Maiman, a scientist then working with the Hughes A ircraft Company, gave the world's first demonstra tion of a laser beam. In 1964 Dr. Townes won the Nobel prize for his work on the theory of lasers. . . The light that comes from a conventional light source radiates in all directions in waves of varying lengths that reinforce or cancel each other. Because it is oon-direc- tional and of varying wavelengths, it is said to be incoherent. Light from a laser beam travels in only one direction and is all at the same wavelength, so that it reinforces itself and is known as coherent light- Be cause it travels in one direction in straight lines, it is a very narrow beam. , To. obtain a directional beam from_ an in coherent conventional source of light it must be focused, and even then it soon spreads it's beam again. Ordinary light sources- are usually heat units such as incandescent lamps, arc lights, etc. In a neon tube the glass walls remain cool but the electrons activate the neon atoms within the glass tube and.ac celerate them to levels -normally found at high temperatures. The. atoms of the source material re brought to a continuous excited state and they fall back to normal by losing energy through heat and visible light. 15