Document nkgaeZBEzReMzGkg8Q4kLr4X2

2961 National Safely Congress Send direct to the international health and saict? division: (1) the problem and what it involves; (2) the area; (3) the foreman's name; (4) the particular plant involved. The international industrial health, and safety personnel will* in turn, send the information to the state labor department or health department; whichever is the most appropriate place. In this way, not only the international will receive an answer, but also the local safety committee. De pending on the reply, the committee can follow tip to see if the condition is cor rected. Both the U-VW. safety director and in dustrial hygienist also may enter the plant by request, through your international represoitative and/or regional director. When management sublets a job to out side contractors, try to convince them to include the plant's safety standards in the contract. Nothing is more demoralizing to the regular employees than to work side by side with these workers when they are not required to wear the same type of safety equipment, such as safety glasses, etc. It is not unusual to find that each man agement in G.M. has different ideas about safety standards and the wearing of pro tective equipment. While one plant has 100 per cent eye protection, another has eye protection in only what is considered haz ardous areas. For their own protection fe male onplpyees wear caps, glasses, shortsleeved blouses and slacks in one plant, while in another, dresses, skirts, no head protec tion are the mode. This can only lead to misunderstanding and an indifferent attitude on the part of the employee in regard to the safety program. Joint labor-managonent safety committees can be of great use to management in both small and large plants. The foreman, a very busy man, is responsible for produc tion, quality, and, supposedly, safety in his department- On top of this, he has to worry about efficiency. It is not unusual to have the foreman call the employee to the desk every so often and say--"Sign here.** If the employee asks what I am signing for, the reply is. *T*ve just given you 3"our safety talk," or, "You've had your good housekeeping talk for the month." To further aggravate good working con ditions and employee morale, it is not un usual for the employee who receives an injury to be given reprimand for work ing in an unsafe manner, even though in the majority of cases, by having the proper engineering or education, the accident would not have occurred in the first place. Safety cotnnvUeemen trained to detea hazards could eliminate many of these ac cidents before an injury or death does oc cur. He also could talk to his fellow em ployee, should he, through ignorance or lack of knowledge ox the job, be working in an unsafe manner. Safety signs throughout the plant should be changed with ever increasing regularity. By signs, I do not refer to the monthly posters * sent out by the National Safety Council, but to the large signs placed throughout the plant by management. However, even the posters should be in a prominent place for all to see. Funployees become so accustomed to the same old sign, it doesn't even register; thus the need for eye catching slogans. Department-wide safety contests, with prizes, for the lowest injury rate should be conducted. A catalogue of prises, sent to the home so the family can be made a part of the contest, would add incentive. Not feasible, you say? Why not, when thousands of dollars are spent on recreation prizes. Management and labor could conduct a joint safety check on cars in both a spring and fall campaign, and certainly all steps should be taken to include labor ir. the local safety councils which are a part of each community and represent all seg ments of society except labor. None of the previously mentioned points are going to be easy. It will take courage but, as Winston Churchill said, "Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities, because it is the quality that guar antees all others." Perhaps you have heard about the man who went out to play a game of golf. After teeing off, he found that his golf hall had landed in a sand trap, right smack dab on the top of an ant-hill. Well, each time he took a swipe at the ball to get it out of the trap, he killed a* couple of thousand ants. This kept up until there were only two lonely ants left. One ant looked at the other and said. 36 Labor Safety **1 don't know about you, buddy, but if you want to survive, we'd better get on the ball." This is what we must do in labor. We have approximately 78.000 local unions throughout the United Slates. With 63,000 of them in the AKL.-CIO, the potential for a working force for safety is great indeed. One of the reasons for organizing in the 30*s was working conditions. Where do we find ourselves today? In most cases, at the bottom of the totem pole. There is not enough concentration on pre vention and the cure of industrial injuries or industrial caused illnesses. It does no good to put the can before the horse, so to speak. Having industrial health and safety subordinate to Workmen's Compensation is equivalent to the American Medical As sociation deciding to eliminate medical re search and investing in cemetery lots. The four "E*s" of safety should be: Edu cation, engineering, enforcement and effort. After an injury* or illness occurs, $100 or even $200 will never compensate the worker or family for the lifetime of misery ahead. You are lucky if you receive $36 a week, which cannot even begin to keep a tastily of three. The end result is wel fare. with all taxpayers sharing the burden. We in the umoo movement do not fully utilize the tremendous resource of our mem bership which is available Even though our vice presidents, regional directors, interna tional representatives, etc. recognize the im portance of industrial health and safety, it is brushed aside in too many instances for what are considered more important things. Must we continue to make progress in safety through tragedy? Has manpower be come such a glut on the market that we can turn aside without a thought to preventing another occurrence? Our own George Brown put it very aptly when he said, "Would you mind getting to the job, staying on the job, and still live long enough to collect all the benefits the union has won across the bargaining table? More of our people are being lolled than wc are organizing." It is up to the rank and file, therefore, to go to work and put pressure on from the grass roots: 1. To make the industrial health and safety committee a mandatory standing com mittee in every local union, in our consti tutions, through convention action; 2. Through membership action, to request regional health and safety conferences at least bi-annually; 3. By requesting our regional directors to include a full week of industrial health and safety classes at our regional summer schools; 4. By taking out membership in the Na tional Safety Council Labor Department. Only by doing these things will we build the solid foundation which is necessary to grow on. In this way also we will eventually receive the language we so desperately need in our contracts and the legislation to back us up. Wc must keep our international health and safety department aware at all times of industrial hazards. In the event of in juries, keep ease histories. As U.A.W. Re gion 1C Director, E. S. "Pat" Patterson, said at a recent safety conference held in Lansing, "Each year we negotiate we arc faced with the same problem. Management at G. M-. for example, polishes all their safety awards and hangs them on the wait Each time we bring up health and safety, they point to their wall. We realize that problems exist; the law today makes it necessary only to report lost-time injuries." However, it cannot be emphasized strongly enough that if we continue to spread our adequately trained union safety personnel so thin, the rank and file have a stupendous job ahead. Most of our international unions have only one or two safety personnel to take care of the U. S. Other internationals .have only part-time personnel, no established industrial health and safety departments, or even safety film libraries for the rank and file to go to. In the state of Michigan we have to work with an antiquated 1909 industrial law, no building code, and we had 40 construc tion workers killed last year. Even our school hot water boilers are not covered under the law, to protect our children. For lack of adequate staff, the state labor department could make less than half of the annual inspections required under the horse and buggy law*. There are approximately 16,000 industrial establishments m the state, with 22 inspectors. We need at least 144 more to 37