Document re1379yga3NLBXVpMVdRxkoLr

MAfi-27-90 TUE 16SS9 L. ^ R R V MftDEKSHO, ATTORNEY DUST CONTROL THROUGH ORGANIZED RESEARCH f; *1 > MANY a small plant owner is in sympathy* with the movement to reduce dust, but he does not have the financial resources to plunge into the prob* lem. fe1' s *'**, 'X What can he do about it? 1 should like to call to your attention the problem of the large plant as contrasted with the little fel low in organizing a dust control program. A con* Wir'7</g- -- * crete illustration may give us the picture better than anything else. Let's make up, therefore, a composite of the best parts of several programs now being carried out by several good-sized companies. In point of fact, no by W.G. HA2ABD Owens-tllingfe Glass Co. Toledo. Ohio one company can be paraded as perfect, but we can imagine that such a faultless organization actually does exist, and we shall label it "Consolidated Cor *** poration." In 1931, Consolidated Corporation was buying sand from a nearby sand plant The sand plant was small in size, having about 100 men on its pay roll All of a sudden, at the depths of the depres sion, the sand operators were faced with silicosis claims presented by former employees, amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars, Alarmed at the catastrophe that had befallen its neighbor, Con solidated Corporation Quite naturally wondered how clean its own bad^ard was, for although it had escaped the "ambulance chasers," the fact re mained that it handled tons and tons of silica sand --a potential hazard. This urge for self-examination was bom in the department of Consolidated Corporation, and this is the first important fact to bear in mind. Silicosis Unknown Silicosis was just as new to the large company as to the sand company, and everything had to be learned from scratch. First of all, a committee was made up of a member of the legal department, a member of the insurance department, and a mem ber of the executive department This board of strategy was appropriately labeled "Hygiene Com mittee.** The help of the engineering department was so licited in making a study to see if a silica hazard actually did exist Generous sums were spent on laboratory apparatus, and Public Health Reprint Xo. 1528 on the impinger was practically mem orized. The only man who had had microscope ex perience was drafted from another important engi neering survey and put on dust-counting in the company's plants from coast to coast. Dust samples showed that control equipment was needed at certain jobs, and the Hygiene Committee had to hire an engineer to devote full time to these -t activities* Thus the Committee had a full-time lawyer and a full-time engineer marshalled against the dust men ace. It should be noted that the legal department not only saw the netd of dust control, but took the Initiative in pushing it. Am hyyiiM Uirc C*. Importance oi Dust Counts Engineering work included the spotting of dust exposures through dust counts. Then as control measures, bins were vented, hoppers were hooded, 1^3*7  27-90 TUE 1?:0 LARRY M A D E K S H O .. ATTORNEY P . -4 2 *nd conveyor transfer point* were enclosed. Ex* haust systems were installed where needed. A sys tem of monthly maintenance repons was set up, with copies going to the plant manager and the general offices. With no rule-of-thumb data available to give the proper volumes and air velocities for the exhaust systems, field tests were made with experimental hoods and a portable exhaust fan. In some in stances, worthwhile information was obtained in this way, but in others, the field tests interfered so much with plant operation and took so much of the time of the already short-handed maintenance de partments, that the tests were not practical. Respirators had already been furnished years ago --and these, incidentally, were as good as the mar ket afforded at that time. When the Bureau of Mines issued its respirator schedule No. 21, Consolidated Corpora tion adopted approved devices. Every man was given two res pirators, each marked with his number so that they eould be cleaned on alternate days. A man will really wear a respir ator conscientiously when he knows he gets his otrn back, cleaned every day. You can see that these me chanics of dust control are not novel. To put them into prac tice, however, was a story of another colon It was a story many authors of technical pa pers skip over hurriedly. Dust 0011*01 work out in Consoli dated's plants was not* so much "engineering" as just plain "sell ing." Everyone from the plant CmwH4 manager down to the janitor had M4*#1 *** to be "fold" on the reasons for keeping down dust First Use of Attack , Whh the expansion of business that followed the depression, industry blossomed out with new bins, new elevators, new drills, new machine tools, and even whole new plants, and Consolidated 'Corpora tion was no exception. A rare opportunity was kere afforded to design this new equipment and fhese structures with the thought in mind of mak- them dust-free. The help of equipment mnnuacturer? wan enlisted, and the slight extra cost entailed in the *e\uitb1* designing of a dust-fvec tool as invested. No other approach to the prob* fundamental nor so productive as this. . * ,me of attack which should be followed by anything from a one-inch n; fj0 * f*ry building. e medical side of the picture. Consolidated instituted pre-employment examinations. The task of finding satisfactoty X-ray machines in some of the smaller towns was in itself difficult, and some plants had to transport their men over 200 miles for the X-ray, thus adding to the expense. Periodic check-up examinations on new employees were car ried out. "Flaying with Dyaa&lte" Throughout this period, which we called the first phase, there was a feeling of tenseness, of playing with dynamite, for every precaution had to be taken to stifle any outburst of false personal injury claims such as had beset some other companies. The situa tion was paradoxical; on the one hand, each plant of Consolidated Corporation had to be instructed in the dangers of silica dust so as to be fully aware of what genuine hazard existed; but on the other hand, mention of the word "silicosis" was made in hushed whispers for fear some less scrupulous person might say "Here's where 1 can cash in." This difficult situation existed because silicosis at tliat time was not under the Commu tation Laws of* any State in which Consolidated operated. The legal department worked with industrial organizations, la bor groups and insurance com panies, in bringing pressure to bear on State legislatures so that one by one silicosis was brought under (workmen's) compensa tion and taken away from the juiy*. As each state enacted a compensation law, with its at tendant assurance of fair play, a huge sigh of relief was passed. fct--j NMfc'llwlU ph*Dust Abatement Permanent Up until now. the position of the Hygiene Committee was quite irregular. Here was an rupiuccr attached to the lego/ department and assigned to work that had Industrial faitlth as its prime end. Thus, legal, engineering and medical activities were carried on in one room, but there was no space to fit this room into the company's house. From an organisation point of view, dust abatement work was ft "pain in the neck" when it came to tying it in logically with some depart ment of the company. The remedy was found, however, when the personnel department of tin* company took over this work and incorporated it in health and safety, good housekeeping medical sen-ice and employee relations program that it whs already carrying on. Dust control work was not merely "lodged" in the personnel department but was permanently built into it and today the com pany's safety program include# not only accident M^R-27-90 TUE 17:01 LARRV M f=* D E K S H O * RTTORHEY R . *3 '* prevention but occupfttior.il disease prevention. With the program now in its fifth year, the thtni era of Consolidated's experience is dawning. What was born $ a "pain in the neck," has now grown into a full-fledged interest in occupational disease in geneva!, not merely silicosis. The trend is shown by pre-employment examinations for everyone, and the increasing use of voluntary periodic examina tions. it is reflected in a different type of plant doctor; he is no longer just a bone-setter, but an industrial physician on the lookout for both aeeidental and health injuries. It is further reflected by ;i better understanding of the purpose of physical examinations. Their chief function is to aid the personnel director in placing the individual who has some disability in a job for which he is physi cally suited. Their function is not, of course, to weed out from industry eveiy individual who has a physical disablement. fock * 'k. N, Yon C*v. While the actual amount of money that Consoli dated Corporation has spent on these three phases of its silicosis problem is unknown, it is easy to see that salaries, equipment, consultant's fees, and ex penses of other kinds during the o-year period have amounted to a very considerable sum* Such a pro gram is too t-j'iKutur for a matt plant. Although everyone is "in sympathy with the movement" the wherewithal is not always to be found. politan, Travelers and others, have an engineering and medical service that ts outstanding. Industrial trade associations, like the American Foundrymen's Association, have done yeoman serv ice in making available material on dust control to their members. The American Society of-Heating and Ventilating Engineers, The American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American Stand ards Association, through committees, have crys Help for Small Plants tallized the thought of the authorities on partic ular engineering phases. ASA Code Z9 on factors There must be some agency that a small plant can involved in the fundamental design of exhaust sys turn to. some clearing house that will tell it what tems, Is a bible for any engineer who delves into It's all about. Fortunately, today we can name such this phase of the work. agencies. Many are still in swaddling clothes, but With the burst of interest of state legislatures in the infant? are husky. occupational disease, many states have set up bu * First, recognition should be given to the old- reaus of occupational disease for the service of in timers who weve well established long before the dustry- depression bred the silicosis "racket.** The United in addition to these, there are at least two States Public Health Service, for one, has for years developments that are backed by industry itself. been vitally concerned with industrial health condi One U the Occupational Diseases Research Depart tions. Dr. H. ft. layers* Division of Industrial Hy ment of Northwestern University. This unit began # giene handles specific problems of industrial com to function last November and ha# a dispensary panies with amazing skill and much patience. clinic to which any case claiming occupational n!>. Tlw Bureau of Mines, likewise, for years has ease can be referred. An excellent aspect of the studied dust conditions, especially in the mineral plan is that the staff spends half its time in the re and allied industries. The Director is constantly search department and half out in the plants mak tackling specific problems that are of general appli ing industrial surveys. Its first symposium was cation. held last September. Two other leaders through seniority and accom plishment are the Harvard School of Public Health Ah Hygiene foundation nnd the Saranac Laboratory, The other development is the Air Hygiene Foun* Insurance Participation I dation, of which Harry Meller is managing director, \ with offices in Pittsburgh. The Foundation is unicue One of the most fruitful sources of information because all phases of the hygiene problems are for the small company is its insurance carrier. In considered--engineering, medical, and total. It *. surance companies like the Aetna, American Mu- Incorporated at the end ot igi$A after a year of wJ, Employers Mutuals. Liberty Mutual, Metro- preparation, and its initial assignment, which Has r.ftR-27-90 T U E 17:02 L R R V MADEKSHO, ATTORNEY R. ' '* jus*. drawn to a close, was to gather together the facta relating to silicosis in all its phases, and to evaluate them. The results are three reports: engi neering, medical, and legal. They are of unusual merit, ar.d could only have been obtained by the pooling of resources and united action in the part of recognized authorities who compose the three committees. This fact-finding survey showed many chinks in the structure of silicosis knowledge that needed to be filled in by further research. A research program has now been drawn up by the Foundation in the light of this ftrat survey, and with the .sponsoring of this, the Foundation has taken its second step. Special Problems Handled Special problems of members are dealt with by the Foundation --which is well equipped for this service because of the exhauKffi library that has been assembled and because of the ability of the members of its technical committees. Membership in the Foundation is open to any in* dustrial company for a fee that is scaled according to payroll. "Reprinted from SAFETY ENGINEERING MAGAZINE, November, 1937"