INTRODUCTION VALUE OF SHOP SAFETY ORGANIZATION The indispensable function of accident prevention and maintenance of cleanliness and orderliness is carried on haphazardly in most manufacturing plants. Instead of centralizing the work in the care of one person, it is generally divided up and parts are added to the other duties of several of the managerial staff. As the management and its subordinates are mostly preoccupied with the more pressing responsibilities of production and marketing, shop safety, sanitation and health usually receive but incidental and unsystematic attention. Even where the management assigns a person to supervise this work, its failure to realize the significance of this phase of shop management often leads it to choose one who can be spared rather than one best qualified for this highly important task. Yet these matters vitally affect the compensation insurance premium as well as plant output. Practical business men, who have resorted to this form of shop activity, testify enthusiastically that a safe and sanitary shop not only means fewer accidents but a more efficient working force. Since it is good business to prevent accidents and maintain orderliness and cleanliness in the factory, supervision of the work is assigned to a competent person, who can give to it whatever time is required in accordance with the size of the working force and the hazard of the industry. Nothwithstanding that a large percentage of the accidents can be prevented only by the good will and coöperation of the employees, the average employer has done little to enlist their aid. He relies upon safeguards alone, whereas a cursory study of his accident records would indicate that a large proportion of accidents cannot be prevented by them. Those employers who are aware of this fact arrive at the hasty conclusion that the worker is "careless." This opinion, if voiced publicly, instead of imbuing the workers with cautiousness and a desire to coöperate with the management, actually stirs up "bad blood." Very few employees are deliber ately careless. The ordinary employee generally subjects himself and fellow workers to danger because it has not occurred to him that he is going about his work in an unsafe manner. The same can be said with reference to maintaining cleanliness and orderliness in the shop. The remedy is to educate and interest the worker in "safe and sanitary practices." But signs and posters alone are inadequate. Success in such matters can best be attained with the coöperation of the employees. Hearty coöperation has been secured in those plants where the workers have been made responsible for their share of plant accident prevention and maintenance of cleanliness and orderliness. To interest the workers, they must be given definite responsibilities and duties. Human beings learn by doing and sharing in responsibilities. Wherever this principle has been adopted and properly applied the workers have responded most enthusiastically. Manufacturers who have a cohesive shop safety, sanitation and health organization, guided by a competent person, point to the following as some of the more obvious benefits of such an organization: It relieves the management and its subordinates from attending to the numerous details connected with maintaining orderliness, cleanliness and safety in the shop. It provides a medium through which these matters, so vital to the successful and economical operation of the plant, will receive the consideration they merit without encroaching upon the time required for other business problems. It enlists the coöperation of all employees from the superintendent to the rank and file worker by introducing collective responsibility. It furnishes a means of interesting the rank and file whose cooperation is absolutely necessary in the successful conduct of a shop safety, sanitation and health organization. It systematizes the work so that maximum results ensue from the time devoted to this phase of shop activity. Nothing is more wasteful and ineffective than haphazard methods. It provides a check on the efficiency of safety work. It makes possible the accumulation and exchange of knowledge and experience in shop safety, sanitation and health work. It makes possible the creation and perpetuation of an enthu siasm and "safety first" spirit without which the best intentions are but vain dreams. WHY THIS PLAN WAS PREPARED A field investigation has revealed that employers generally are not aware of the value of a shop safety, sanitation and health organization. Many plants having such an organization lack the requisite information in order to make it succeed. The bare skeleton outlines with which they are provided do not convey a comprehensive idea of the necessary form and functions of a thoroughgoing shop safety, sanitation and health organization. The plan presented herewith aims to aid manufacturers in forming a shop safety organization and in understanding its functions. HOW THE PLAN WAS PREPARED While, as already noted, this plan is an outgrowth of a field investigation, the information thus gathered was supplemented by literature bearing on these subjects. The plan is therefore a composite of the experience of a wide range of plants in numerous industries. The plan was originally issued in tentative form and submitted for criticism to leading safety authorities and practical manufacturers. The large number of painstaking suggestions is conclusive evidence that safety leaders not only preach but actually practice cooperation. The spirit and substance of the plan were, however, practically unanimously endorsed. Three classes of suggestions and criticisms on specific items in the plan were received. Those that were of a general nature and therefore coincided with the purpose of the plan, which, as stated in the introduction, was designed to serve " as a guide rather than as an inflexible program," were incorporated on their merit. Suggestions and criticisms that were suitable only for a particular plant, or industry, were generally omitted. A third class of recommendations comprised a number of comments on the most successful manner of launching a safety organization; on how to guide it successfully; on how to manipulate the various human elements composing the organization; on the attitude of the management. toward specific phases of a safety plan, and so on. These psychological problems pertain to the human or policy aspect of accident |