Document zQy9EbDEEBL1e93B0NqReq0e3

24 Metals Industry not afford the protection desired to the upper part of the kg when this occurs. However, in wearing knee type leggings, it is important that the trousers are bloused over the top of the legging, so that molten metal cannot enter through the top and run down inside between the plants and the legging. Before 1 continue discussing persona! safety equipment, let** see if. in ycur esti mation. this wearing of safety equipment pays. I have positive proof that it dor* pay, because I can use the foundry 1 work in as an example of the results that can be obtained. The Harvester Company pur chased and took over operation of the Wau kesha Foundry m February 1946. We had no planned safety program and not many safety rules, such a* those we have now requiring the wearing of safety equipment. We had 28 lost-time accidents among oar- foundry workers in 1946 including one fa tality. ?n June of that year we had a safety program functioning and a goggle and legging wearing rule that worked. Our record thereafter showed how it worked. Of the 28 lost-time accidents in 1946, twenty-five happened during the first six months. We had three lost-time accidents the last six mouths of that year. During 1947 we did not have a lost-time accident, and we did not have a lost-time accident again until August 194*, which was the only one of its type that year. So we worked two years with one lost-rime accident. During these two years, 1947 and 1948, we worked over 2,159,000 hours with one lost-rime accident in a 100 per cent foundry operation. Incidentally, the one accident we did have daring 1947 and 1941 amounted to only three days lost tune. In 1919 we had three lost-time accidents. These amounted to a total of 48 days lost rime, and so far in 2950 we have had two lost- rime accidents, one of which amounted to four days, and the other to one day of lost rime. I think this record speaks for itsdf, and if you could see some of the damaged personal safety equipment turned in for re placement and repair, you too would be enthusiastic about equipping your employees with some type of goggles and ori^er types of safety equipment. In Wisconsin, as probably many of you know, under our Industrial Commission rules, any safety equipment that an em ployee is required to wear as a condition of employment must be furnished gratis by the employer. So we do not require that our employees wear safety shoes in order to hold their jobs, but we do our best to tell employees on the idea of wearing safety shoes. We sell two types of shoes, lace and what is commonly called molders shoes, which are the slip-co type with elastic sides. We sell lace shoes in both high and oxford styles. We discourage wearing oxfords except in our cleaning, inspection, core and finishing deportments, as hot sand and molten metal in other de partments may get in low shoes very easily. These safety shoes have saved many en. ployees from serious injury. I wish I could show you a couple of shoes that have withstood the heavy impact of a casting that accidentally dropped or feU, so you could see how the Wow was deflected or how the toe of the shoe was crushed with out causing injury to the foot. We also encourage the wearing of gloves by our grinders and employees who handle castings bemuse an accident such as a cut or ` burn may take place. Many rimes a grinder's hand slips and toodws the wheel. The glove is cut but the hand is saved from injury. Sharp edges on castings can cause nasty cuts, which can be prevented by the wearing of gloves. Likewise a shifter nay accidently bum hi* hand on molten metal or on a mold or weight. The gloves used are. of the gauntlet and knitted-wrist type with a leather palm. Gloves are sold to employees at cost. I think I have mentioned the hasards most common in our foundries which axe burns, eye, foot and hand injuries, and the measures we have taken to prevent them. Of coarse, what is done to prevent such injuries is up to you, bat we have pre vented a lot of these injuries in our plant. Safety education is a never-ending process, and you must put all your efforts into it to keep it alive. A safety program must go on day-aftcr-day to that there will be no letdown. During the many years that I have ben connected with safety, I have sold myself on it If you are sold it Is that modi easier to sdt the other fellow, and If you do seS the other fellow on wearing personal safety equipment your safety program is bond to succeed. The Problem of Industrial Hygiene in the Foundry 25 The Problem of Industrial Hygiene in the Foundry By HERBERT J. WEBER CUM Indutml Hygienist; American. Brake Shoe Co., Medical Department, Chicago, CL Potential hazards to health in the foundry industry are becoming more numerous today because of advances in metallurgical re search. Formerly the foundry was identified with afficaxs, bat recent studies have shown that the mcxknce of silicosis in the industry is low. However new alloying materials axe now being used to obtain special metal lurgical properties. Thus today we find lead, tine, tefluriam, beryllium, manganese, phos phorus, radioactive cobalt--to name a few materials--being used routinely in founding. These have given rise to new hazards and to new problems of prevention. The solution is not the same for all yet, fortunately, there are some common principles of ap proach that arc applicable in a generic way. Sometimes I think preventive measures are becoming so complicated that only a trained hygienist is capable of applying them intelligently. On the other band, there are certain common sense procedures that should seem obvious even to the uninitiated. In the light of our present knowledge, you cannot deal with beryllium for example, in the tune way as you would with silica or with radioactive materials, and respirators are not a solution. As I have said elicwhere: "Respirators are a stop gap--a. dubious remedy. In the first place their esc lulls one into a sense of false security. Suppose management issues respirators to all exposed employees instead of controlling the dart and fume; and thereby in its mind disposes of the hazard, has It solved the problem? If the solution of industrial hy giene problems were that simple, you need no industrial hygiene program other than a respirator service, and you need no in dustrial hygienists. But actually, men will not wear respirators continuously because they are forced to breathe against a resist ance; and for work requiring exertion or where there is exposure to heat, a respirator Is a cruel remedy. Furthermore, unless the respirator fits tightly, it is worthless. In my experience, this device may* be defined as a round* type ornament loosely pendent from the neck and used in dirty industries to distinguish the laborers from the office em ployees. "If a respirator must be worn, except for unusual cases and for intermittent or casual jobs, it is an indictment of the working environment and an admission of unhygienic conditions. It should be a last resort when all other solutions have failed or are im practical." This is not to condemn respirators prr st. They have tbrir use and there is a real need for them in the situations mentioned but they have been readily seized upon as a panacea for all ills due to exposure to foundry dusts and fumes. Properly and appropriately worn, they are effective. As I said before, the problem of preven tion is a complicated one. Some foundries are mechanized, some are production shops, others jobbing shop*. One makes beryllium bronze castings, another tellurium iron, and yet another manganese steel. Correct and safe procedures will be different in each instance and the limitations of this paper prevent a detailed analysis of there specific problems. However, there are some control factors common to all and within the reach of the poorest plant. Oddly enough they are, in my opinion, the most powerful weapons in the fight against occupational disease. They are; 1. A willingness on the part of top man agement to correct bad conditions. Lip service is futile and is readily sensed by the line supervision. The annual pep talk at the safety dinner is not enough. Supervisors must be made to account for departmental hygiene as well as for production. In my experience, unless you have the support of top management, the most expensive exhaust systems will not bring about good working environment 2. Good Housekeeping. It costs little but pays the biggest dividends. A cluttered and dirty area in a foundry causes accidents and occupational disease. , > 26 Metals Industry I -will venture to say that the greatest reduction in the incidence of occupational disease and of accidents in the foundry will be brought about by good housekeeping. It is almost a complete answer to the question: "What can 1 do about industrial hygiene?** and yet it is often so ignored. If a plant manager walked into the treasurer's office and found twcnty-dollar bills lying on the floor, in the waste basket, on the windowledges, he'd be scandalized. Yet. in his own plant, equipment and material--all of which represent dollars--are strewn about in the same careless manner. A certain foundry decided to put a new concrete floor in the core room. "When the contractor arrived to set the forms, he found a perfectly good concrete floor about a foot below the dirt That is a true story! It has been shown by Hatch that occu pational disease is directly proportional to crowding. A study of 43 foundries in New York State revealed the following startling rela tionships between housekeeping arid the inci dence of silicosis. Number of StlkoMf IkMow (Prato*) HovwfcnMMt PtsJrtS Median Mmius Mkie- Fair .... .. is Bad .... .. 22 1.9 4.4 5.4 2.8 15.4 UJ 1.0 tJO ot Note that no foundries were classified as having good housekeeping; only 5 were fair, 18 poor, but most of than bad. Note also the sharp reduction in the incidence of silicosis between plants with bad housekeep ing and those with fair. What would the difference be if the comparison were made between plants having bad and very good housekeeping ? In one of our own brass foundries we had approximately 14 cases of lead poisoning a month. With little change in the ventilating system but by reason of an excellent regi men of good housekeeping alone, we have not had a single case in over five years. I know of a foundry that removed 60 tons of dust from the superstructures. Such material finally exceeds the angle of repose, and dust from the supentnetnm is con stantly set air-borne by building vibration. Particles of physiologically significant sue will remain suspended in tfM air for very long periods thus contaminating the at mosphere long after the dust-producing op eration has ceased. A spherical particle hav ing the same density as quartz will fall 0.016 foot per minute or 1 foot per hour a still air. This important fact has not been fully appreciated by the foundry industry. I have found high dust concentrations in foundries with very good ventilating sys tems because the floors and rafters were sddoes if ever cleaned. For this reason, I have been strongly in favor of central built-in vacuum doming systems capable of main taining a vacuum of 12 inches of mercury at six outlets shndtaneomly. Such systems are not expensive. In fact, I believe a built-in vacuum cleaning system IS as im portant as a good ventilating installation if we are to have good industrial hygiene la the fotmdry. 3. The third important control factor is education. I have fotmd unsafe conditions m the foundry because the supervision was ignorant of the toxic effects of the materials they used or of the hazards involved in a givdn process. For example, on foundry was blissfully engaged in the production of beryllium copper, totally unaware of the reported ex treme toxidty of beryllium; and the mate rial was handled and processed with the same indifference as phosphor-copper. Another plant nuking copper castings was surprised when the workmen contracted lead poisoning because the copper contained Jess than 2 per cent lead. They forgot about the vapor pressure of lead at the melting temperature of copper and, as a result, there was a high concentration of lead-in-air around the unexhausted furnaces. A third plant did not know that fumes from welding and burning steel and gray Iron castings is principally iron oxide. Ia the concentrations produced by those opera tions, iron oxide will cause a hatg condition knows as slderosis. Siderosis consists of a pigmentation of the lungs due to deposits of iron throughout the lung fields. It is nondisabling and is harmless much as s tatoo mark on the skin is harmless though undesirable. However, the iron deposits arc radio-opaque and their shadows seas an a roentgenogram are very similar la appear ance to those caused by fibrosis due to free silica- As a result, a diagnosis of silicosis is frequently made and compensation for a non-existent disability results. Presentation of Awards 27 Now foundrymen arc not toxicologists or industrial hygienists and, therefore, cannot be expected to know the hazards involved ia founding. But the United States Depart ment of Health, branches of which are set up in each state, is at their service at no charge. T&s a * facfcfiadiat fluaniatian. without coercive or police powers: and, therefore, no plant should fear to call oo them for assistance if the plant really wants technical advice. The foregoing three factors then; (1) Conviction on the part of top management that good industrial hygiene is good busi ness; (2) Good hqusekroxnr; and (3) Education, are prerequisites is any foundry hygiene program. Without them, it is fool ish to discus* safe practices or to install expensive ventilating systems. Presentation of Awards By GROVBR C. BROWN Secretary, Industrial Relations Committee, American Iron and Steel Institute, New York, N. Y. The metals industry was one of the first to be recognized as a separate and distinct sectlon of the National Safety Council. Metals, together with nine other industries was organized a* a separate section in 1915. The first safety contest for this section was held 14 years later ia 1929. Today we are celebrating its Z2cd consecutive safety coo lest Only 34 units were entered in that first contest, all under one general classification but divided into groups A and B according to size. Through the years this section has grown until it sow encompasses nine sepa rate classifications, each divided into three groups. A, B, and C according to size. As you know, these nine classifications are: steel mills, iron and steel rolling mills, non-ferrous metals and products, foundries, machine shops with foundries, heavy fabricating, light fabricating, heavy machinery and light ma chinery. Included within these nine classifica tions are 2^15 separate operating units scat tered geographically from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. All arc eligible to compete in this Metals Section's Safety Contest. A "Unit** may be a single plant or de partment or x group of plants or depart ments, a part or the whole of a company. These 2^515 operating units have combined payrolls of more than a million onployccs. all potential players on the many scores of safety teams eligible to* compete in this contest This year 706 units have satisfied all re quirement* and completed the contest This is equivalent approximately to one oat of every three units eligible to compete. (A few additional units participated through part or all of the contest period but for some reason have failed to fulfill all requirements to the end and are not now included in this total.) To build up this total of 706 com peting units, the heavy fabricating and light fabricating divisions each supplied 128. Light machinery supplied 103 units, foundries--416, and heavy machinery--90. Sixty-nine units came from steel mills and 32 from non- ferrous metals and products. Iran and steel rolling mills and machine shops with foun dries contributed the remainder with 30 each. One hundred and sixty-six of these units are in Group A, 239 in Group B, and 301 in Group C. ' Nintey-six of these units have emerged from this contest as 1st place winners. This is equivalent to an average of approximately one for every seven units which satisfac torily completed the contest (A winner is a unit with a perfect score or with the lowest score In its respective group.) Group A, of targest units, is credited with 9 win ners; Group B, of medium sized units, has 13 winners; and Group C, of smallest units has come through with 74 winners. The ratios of number of 1st place winners to number of contestants is therefore-- For Group A--1 for every 18.4 units For Group B--1 for every 18.4 units For Group C--1 for every 4.1 units