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1--Occupational Safety
for they include a very large number of nonmanufacturing work deaths Farm work, trades, services, and government accounted for more than half the accidental work deaths in recent years The remaining 6900 deaths occurred in manufacturing, public utilities, transportation, construction, and the extractive industries (mining, quarrying, and gas and oil wells)
Overall frequency and seventy rates for all industnes since 1926 are not available, but figures on the experience of concerns reporting to the National Safety Council provide a dra matic summary of the progress of organized safety work in the nation, a 66 percent cut m the frequency of disabling injunes
Though these figures represent only compa nies involved in the work of the organized safety movement, they cannot be dismissed as representing a handful of firms with an ex ceptionally high level of safety enthusiasm The latest figures are based on reports from over 13,000 units These units were prin cipally manufacturing concerns, which ac counted for more than one-fourth of the total number of manufacturing man-hours worked in America
It would be fair, perhaps, to call these fig ures representative of large-plant experience in this country, since the Council receives the majority of its reports from large concerns and only a minority from small ones
Safety professionals cannot afford to under estimate the significance of the statistical data on their past performance It is abundantly dear that the bitter problem confronting the safety pioneers of 1913 has been attacked with measurable success
The dollar values
It has been estimated that the annual cost of occupational accidents in the United States exceeds $11 5 billion If the 1912 accident rates had been left unchanged and if there had been no organized safety movement, this an nual cost would have easily been two or three times as great
Against such dollar savings, the relatively small expenditures for safety throughout Amer ica provide a striking contrast Each dollar spent for safety by American industry is prob ably producing a clear profit of several hun dred percent.
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Industry and nonwork accidents
Directly and indirectly, industry is bearing a substantial part of the burden of the cost of nonwork accidents and their prevention The National Safety Council is the creation of in dustry and largely supported by it. Statewide and local safety organizations play a major role m the fight against such accidents, and they, too, are largely industrial in origin and support Thousands of safety professionals and their employers volunteer tune and funds which are the mainstay of the National Safety Council's work
Industry supports a large part of the job of informing the general public on these prob lems through the press, radio, and television
The effectiveness of the nonwork accidentprevention campaign is shown by the fact that, from the time records were first kept in 1928, both home and public accident death rates (excluding motor vehicle accidents) have de clined
If industry has been a large contributor to this successful work, it has also been a heavy beneficiary of its fruits Disruption of labor force, worry and hardship among employees, loss of purchasing power by consumers, and heavy tax burdens for the support of hospitals and relief agencies are all results of nonwork accidents which affect industry's pocketbook.
The safety movement's resources
Statistics measure what has been accom plished and also indicate the development of tools, methods, and knowledge which are the safety professional's capital and his resources for meeting future accident problems.
Know-how. A body of knowledge cannot be entirely translated mto statistics, but it may be of use to note the outward signs of in creased knowledge about industrial safety
This Accident Prevention Manual is not a radical venture mto new fields of knowledge It is the cumulation of facts and opinions which have become a part of the safety move ment's general heritage Its purpose is to bring key points of specific, as well as general, value to safety workers
Here aie collected facts that took years to discover--years of searching and researching, of trial and error, of failure and success.
Today, an individual, whether an expen-