Document vV1Njp7qZQBKEbLmpK1n5VLnm

1967 National Safety Congress more hazardous than in the wheat holds of the Dakotas. Cold: How dangerous is it to bo oiposcd to isocyanate fumes, every work day? Wiltons: Isocyanate vapors, which come off a liquid, are very hazardous. The Ameri can Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists have established a Threshold Limit Value of 200 parts per million, for any length of time. In other words, a person should never bo subjected to those vapors, at concentrations above this limit, at anytimo during the work day. It can seriously affect the upper respiratory tract Delegate: Polyurethane paint has a TDI or toluene Isocyanate in it Wo now have about 40 pcoplo on record with a respiratory ailment All of these people are working in the area where this paint is being applied. I called in the state and Federal govern ment inspectors to run tests in the area, and they stated that their readings showed that there Is a .01 parts per million of thoso va pors in tho air. However, tho people are still getting sick. The manufacturer said there is no tolueno isocyanate in this paint. What can be done to stop the paint manufacturers from making these claims when they are not true? Tho painters using this paint wear res pirators; however, they ore stffl suffering the same ill effects. There are also people work ing in tho area who are not equipped with respirators, and they are suffering the same ill effects. Wiltons: I do not know the governing laws in your state; however, in Illinois Part J in tho Labeling Code makes it mandatory for the manufacturer of tho chemical to state, on a label, the various toxic materials contained in the substance. As a matter of fact, the company that buys the materials is responsible for seeing that the labels are on the containers. The Illinois State Labor De partment is responsible for enforcing this la beling code. If peoplo are still getting sick from breathing tho air in the work area, there must bo something wrong. It may be that when the inspectors took readings, tho air was not as contaminated os it may have been during different times of the day, or different days of tho week. Delegate: When we asked the Federal In dustrial Hygienist to come and check tho work area, he camo with the state inspector and met and talked only with management people. They did not discuss the problem with the union safety personnel Wiltons: It is tnie that all industrial hy gienists, regardless of whether they are state government or Federal government,, first contact management and are usually es corted by management, primarily because management owns the property and is the legal host. However, I believe that tho in dustrial hygienist should discuss the situation with the union safety peoplo, especially if tho union is the one that made tho Initial re quest for tho inspection. Delegate: Why is it that tho system of re cording accident rates and calculating fre quency and severity rates are so confusing and lend themselves to covering up serious accidents? Lennle: I have to agree that frequency rates are very confusing. We have an organ ized plant across the street from our plant in Hamilton, Canada, and our safety engineer tells us that their frequency rate is much better than ours. I questioned some of tho employees in the plant across the street and found that ono of the reasons they have such a good rate is because they have employees coming in to work on crutches, and injured peoplo aro kept in change houses. Thoy have a system where they use the designation of FLT which indicates "possible lost time". They also designate some injuries as minor. It is up to the first aid attendant to deter mine the seriousness of the injury. These are some of the things that make frequency rates confusing and misleading. Delegate: There is a lot of truth in what Mr. Lcnnie says, and it is true that accidents aro hidden. However, I believe that any safety director that allows this to happen is only kidding himself. He has nothing to base his progress on. Delegate: To me, it's just a numbers game. The doctor sayB you either take the soft job or go on pension. Every company operates differently, and every state operates differently. The day we get to the truth, it will be tho best thing that ever happened. Gold: What are some of tho ways for con vincing a company of the benefits of a la bor-management safety committee? Whttehouse: The answer to that is ob vious; however, in some cases it seems to be a real problem. In the IBEW, we have over 1,800 local unions, and out of that there are 1,100 joint labor-management safety corn- 32