Document pmQ9ro0Rz9goEp5pVK0bDmdMw

t. V LI com /`4*?*j! :'J/- .' ' in the program it was found that ' rotation of. employees from jobs with high noise levels to less 'noisy jobs was . not the solution. . The company finally turned to an earmuff program. Ai first there was great resistance to wearing the de vices due to discomfort. "We lis tened, adjusted, talked, counseled until that lime came when we had improved our adaptation to a point . that complaints of the product stop ped completely," Haluska said. The highest compliment -paid the hear ing program came from a hammershop employee who told Haluska. "You know yesterday for the first time in a long time I could, hear my son's voice when 1 got home from work." Speaking before the filass and Ceramics Section; J. S. Sharrah, Occupational Health Services. Perm*. sylvania Manufacturers' Associa tion Casualty Insurance Co... gave a brief recaj> of workmen's compensa tion decisions in hearing loss. "Prior ' to 1948. hearingJoss'was not re garded as a significant factor in workmen's compensation," accord ing to Sharrah. . Partial hearing loss, due to noise was ordinarily not compensable. Subsequent decisions in New York. Wisconsin, Missouri. Maryland, and fieorgia huv^ significantly .broad ened (he scope of compensation. In . the* 1962 case in Georgia, the court ruled "that the loss of heating was the cumulative effect of a succes sion of traumatic injuries suffered hy each sound impulse in the air. The court allowed the elaiuf and accepted the medical evidence pre sented whereby it was slated that a 51 per cent impairment (repre. vented a total loss of industrial use of. the'ear." One of his listeners asked Shar rah "Since noise is something that has just recently become important as a compensable work injury, what do you recommend companies do to limit their liability--in all prob ability they have not given audio metric tests to workers, ahd so can't present proof that hearing hiss sons with subnormal hearing as be ing less likely, to suffer further hearing loss than a person with acute hearing.* "Such a. person." Sharrah said; "is actually a better employee to 'put in a noisy opera tion. Certainly there is no ground hj discriminating against the appli isn't a result of work in their plant. cant with loss of hearing." Now, an employee comes up with ,, Or. Aram Glorig, director of |he less than normal hearing* and a Subcommittee on Noise- Research . compensation claim. What do you Center..told the labor sessions that do?** sometimes one of the best protec Sharrah said the best defensive tors against hearing loss is over steps depend on the size *of the looked--that is, rest between ex company. In large corporations posures. If a worker is able to get noise level surveys are being'con- away from a noisy environment ducted and these can furnish pnxif periodically, he will give his hear that exposures have' been beliw- ing mechanism time to recover 1 permissible limits under the law. In little cnmpaniA "it is still likely they can atfnrd audiometric read ings. The real problem is in the SO to 100 man operation--let's say a little foundry--obviously they can't have a staff person do .readings and surveys, liut, their insurance com- ' pany will often offer services of this kind, as will certain stale govern ment agencies. Sometimes associa tions of such small shops dr plants can provide noise measurement ser vices.'5^ In response to another question Sharrah pointed out that one of the benefits of pre-employment audiometric tests is identification of per from temporary damage..When the. car has no time to recover from the , temporary damage due to noise, the damage will become permanent and irreversible. Glorig was not optimistic about the chances of engineering noises out of machinery to the-point where . it would not. endanger hearing. ".You can control noise in a drophammcr, but no one can., operate it' when you get through," he said. He concluded that many noises can he controlled to a degree where they ' will not he nearly so damaging, but very few can be controlled so that there is no problem so far as hear ing loss is concerned. Seeking Ways To Motivate H<;low IX) YQU MOTIVATE an.rnijiloyvc to he sale? Three practitioners in the re search and application of motiva tional principles tackled (hat .ques-1 lion in a special session that packed the Grand llallnxtni of the Hilton their appraisals-ol what, if anything, could he done to enter into the needs and experiences of the work er and make him want to he safe. According to Peterson, since safe ty is "asking something new of the worker, he must be convinced that Hotel. the new material is worth learning." Participating in the session, pre He noted the crucial role of "mean- sided over hy W. I*. Stuffing, direc ingfulness" in the teaming .process tor of safety. Carrier C'orp., were as it operates to help the employee Richard .'O. Peterson,, training re-' . see how a given safely measure re search supervisor, American Tele lates to him and his job. phone and Telegraph Co.; M. Scott In pointing nut the dangers of Myers', director of development, .making a'safety message l<x> broad, Texas Instruments, Inc.; and Ingn Peterson called fur a high degree Ingenhol, director, psychological 1 sjKeilicity in order to make the services.' Middle West Service C o. message "logical" to the worker in While there was consensus that safety, as it relates to the individ ual worker, needed to he looked at "from the inside out." the.three speakers differed eotfsiileirahly in terms of his past experience. He stressed the. value in studying "near-accidents" as objective and nonthreatening sources of safety in- formation, since "it's necessary to 26 National Safety Nswt.' December 1964 Nilled