INVESTIGATIONS INTO INDUSTRIAL HYGIENE AND SAFETY Immediate Legislative Program: Encourage the investigation of industrial accidents and occupational diseases by state and national authorities, and urge upon the federal government proper provision for the study and advancement of industrial hygiene and safety. The first thing needed for the prevention of accidents and occupational diseases is information, not merely statistics, but facts in regard to the causes which bring about and the measures necessary to prevent this unnecessary waste of human life and energy. Only by the publication of facts authoritatively ascertained can a substantial foundation be laid for legal rectification of conditions which we all recognize as a disgrace to civilization. The different states should make thorough investigations of conditions within their own borders, and the scattered federal investigations in the field of industrial hygiene and safety should be correlated and placed under the direction of one national agency, which should be thoroughly equipped, manned, and financed for making comprehensive studies into the conditions of safety and hygiene in American industry. In Illinois and New York special investigations of occupational diseases have been made by state commissions, and the results have been published.1 Among the state agencies which are now conducting investigations of this subject are the boards of health of Ohio, Massachusetts, and Michigan, and the Industrial Commission of Wisconsin. The federal Commission on Industrial Relations is authorized to inquire into "the conditions of sanitation and safety and the provisions for protecting the life, limb, and health of the employees". But so many other subjects are assigned to this commission that it is extremely doubtful whether it will be able to cover the subject of industrial accidents and diseases with anything 'Report of the (Illinois) Commission on Occupational Diseases, January, 1911; Preliminary Report of the New York Factory Investigating Commission, like the thoroughness that is needed. Moreover, permanent provision for such study is demanded. Eastman, Crystal. Work Accidents and the Law: The Pittsburgh Survey (New York, 1910), pp. 4-5. A social investigation is justified when there are grounds for belief that wrong exists in certain relations between individuals, a wrong of sufficient importance and extent to warrant concerted interference on the part of the community. When to such a belief is added a general conviction that this wrong results in a great public tax, a drain upon the productive forces of the community, the need for investigation becomes urgent. With regard to the work-accident problem, such a belief and conviction has long existed,-based not only upon newspaper stories, magazine articles, and hearsay, but upon the common knowledge and experience of working people. . . . If adequate investigation reveals that most work-accidents happen because workmen are fools, then there is no warrant for direct interference by society in the hope of preventing them. If, on the other hand, investigation reveals that a considerable proportion of accidents are due to insufficient concern for the safety of workmen on the part of their employers, then social interference in some form is justified. American Labor Legislation Review, Vol. I, No. 1, Memorial on Occupational Diseases, prepared by a committee of experts and presented to the President of the United States (Sept. 29, 1910). It is a generally accepted principle of modern sanitary science that a large amount of sickness in industry or otherwise is preventable, and that the average duration of life can be materially prolonged by deliberate and rational methods of personal, social and industrial hygiene. . . . The probable amount of possible sickness reduction [among about 33,500,000 workers for salaries or wages in the United States] may be conservatively placed at not less than 25 per cent. ... On the theoretical assumption that of the probable amount of sickness among the workers of the nation, one-fourth at least is due to strictly preventable causes, the number of days of sickness per annum can, by deliberate efforts, be diminished by 71,187,500, and the resulting total economic gain to the nation may be estimated at not less than $193,223,215 per annum. . . . Practically all the standard works of reference on occupational diseases are by English or continental authorities. There is no modern treatise on the subject by an American authority on industrial hygiene, and the occasional official investigations which have been made into health conditions of particular trades only emphasize the necessity of a more thorough and strictly scientific inquiry by national authority. . . . The real requirements are statistics of morbidity and trustworthy information regarding the actual conditions under which American industries are carried on and the relation of such conditions to the longevity and sickness rates of the employees. . . . Foreign statistical and other data on occupational diseases naturally have their inherent limitations on account of more or less essential differences in industrial pro cesses or the conditions and circumstances under which American industries are carried on, and it is, therefore, the conviction of this committee that, for the development of rational principles of governmental or state action in matters of this kind, the whole subject requires to be investigated and reported upon by national authority. . . . A comprehensive national inquiry into the whole subject of occupational diseases is urgently called for. Signed: HENRY BAIRD FAVILL, FREDERICK L. HOFFMAN, Warthin, Dr. A. S. “A Preliminary Report on Some Occupational Diseases Occurring in Michigan," Public Health, Michigan, January-March, 1912, p. 77. Much broader laws aimed at the prevention of occupational diseases are greatly needed in this state [Michigan]. For this reason, and because future legislation concerning workmen's compensation and insurance must have such a foundation before intelligent action can be taken, and finally because Michigan presents certain forms of occupational diseases of great scientific interest, the appointment of a commission on the investigation of occupational diseases in Michigan... is strongly recommended. Such a commission should collect all data as to the occupational diseases occurring in Michigan, and recommend legislation for their prevention. American Labor Legislation Review, Vol. II, No. 2, June, 1912, Introduction, p. 181. The Memorial on Occupational Diseases, prepared by a committee of the first conference [of the American Association for Labor Legislation on that subject], laid the foundation for and strongly urged national investigation of industrial hygiene. One after another eight states have since then passed the Association for Labor Legislation's standard bill requiring physicians to report all cases of certain diseases of occupation. The work of the one state commission, in Illinois, led to the enactment of a special occupational disease law requiring monthly medical examinations of workmen in a few of the most hazardous employments. In April, 1912, the United States Congress agreed, by passing the Association's bill placing a prohibitive tax on poisonous phosphorus matches, to abolish "Phossy Jaw", the occupational disease due to the one industrial poison which had then been thoroughly studied. In the meantime, the List of Industrial Poisons, prepared by the International Association for Labor Legislation and translated by the United States Bureau of Labor, gave definite direction to further investigations. Reports on industrial poisoning from lead and mercury have already been published, and medical inspection of factories has increased in importance. The Second National Conference on Industrial Diseases, in Atlantic City, June, 1912, was attended by practising physicians, state and federal public health officials, medical inspectors of factories, physiologists, investigators and statisticians, manufacturers, efficiency engineers, insurance experts, labor leaders, economists, and social workers. Through an industrial hygiene exhibit, the first extensive display of the kind in America, industrial processes dangerous to health and the effects of these peculiar work hazards, including such diseases as "phossy jaw", lead poisoning, arsenic poisoning, compressedair illness, and numerous occupational eye and skin diseases, were graphically placed before the audience. These photographs, charts and drawings were realistically and effectively supplemented by stereopticon illustrations, made by the new process in color photography. Finally, through the medium of a joint session with the American Medical Association, that organization, for the first time in the sixty-six years of its existence, gave a place to the industrial disease problem on its annual program. There is now scarcely a public meeting of importance for the discussion of any phase of the labor problem that does not include at least some mention of occupational diseases. Three federal bureaus are now making investigations in their own respective fields, and several state commissions, bureaus of factory inspection, and boards of health are at work upon the problem. The American Association for Labor Legislation has now published no less than forty papers and reports on occupational diseases and industrial hygiene. The publication . . . through the cooperation of the Association for Labor Legislation, the Library of Congress, and the United States Bureau of Labor, of a special Bibliography on Industrial Hygiene, will make further researches less difficult. Hoffman, Frederick L. "Industrial Diseases in America", American Labor Legislation Review, Vol. I, No. 1, January, 1911, p. 40. The plea is, first for the appointment of a national commission to investigate and report upon the whole subject of industrial diseases; second, for the foundation of a national institute of industrial diseases upon the broadest plane of a liberal philanthropy corresponding to the great foundations of generous-minded givers in other fields; third, for the establishment of a national institute for the improvement of labor conditions, including a thoroughly equipped museum for safety devices. It would perhaps be difficult to comprehend a more ambitious program in a few words, but where the issue at stake is the well-being of the wage-earning masses, who by their toil contribute the sum and substance of our national wealth, the object to be attained is well worth the required effort, and it is to be hoped that through persistent agitation on the part of the American Association for Labor Legislation these hopes and plans will be realized in a not far distant day. References: For a critical bibliography on the subject of industrial hygiene, prepared by the American Association for Labor Legislation, the United States Bureau of Labor, and the Library of Congress, see the American Labor Legislation Review, Vol. II, No. 2. PROTECTION FOR WORKING WOMEN Immediate Legislative Program: Cooperate in securing effective legal safeguards for working women. The world-wide recognition of the need of special legal protection for women in industry is shown in the proposals of the International Association for Labor Legislation for international treaties on nightwork prohibition and on the ten-hour day. The night-work prohibition has now been adopted by practically all of fourteen countries which signed the convention in 1906; the proposal for a ten-hour day limitation is soon to be laid before the different countries for their ratification. In America, since the favorable United States Supreme Court decision on the Oregon ten-hour law in 1908, rapid advances have been made in legal limitations upon the hours of work for women. This year the state supreme courts of both Washington and California have upheld eight-hour laws, and Colorado, in November, 1912, by referendum vote, established an eight-hour day for women. During the last two years in this country pioneer legislation has been enacted by Massachusetts establishing a minimum wage board and by Massachusetts and New York requiring rest periods for working women at the time of childbirth. The idea of prohibiting the employment of women in certain employments in America has scarcely gone beyond the industries of mining and the selling of liquors. Careful investigations of working conditions will undoubtedly result in the extension of this list and will bring out the need of stricter regulations for many of the dangerous and unhealthful trades in which women are now engaged. In 1909 the Association for Labor Legislation published a tabular summary of state laws which then placed maximum hour limitations upon the labor of women. The demand for that publication (now out of print) and a continual stream of requests for up-to-date information on woman's work, have led to the following revision and enlargement of that material to meet the needs of present members of the Association. For a standard bill, developed out of the experience of the National Consumers' League fight for the ten-hour day for working women, address the secretary of that organization at 106 East 19th Street, New York City. |