... its gravity is best indicated by the fact that 200,000 more persons were compensated for industrial accidents in the five years following the war than were wounded in the previous five years of war. British Industrial Safety-First Organization.
Accident prevention is universally called “safety first”—a slogan which originated in the United States from an old railroad rule: The safety of the public shall be the first consideration of the staff. The slogan proved so popular that it now includes all common sense principles in the ever increasing and inevitable risks of modern industrial processes.
The Navy has always been a leader in “safety first,” especially “safety at sea,” and a standard that has not been equaled was set by the establishment of the Hydrographic Office, in 1830.
Why are we concerned with accident prevention in navy yards? Because it represents one of the great economic wastes today in the Navy and in industries. Over $250,000 a year are paid in compensation to navy- yard workmen or their dependents; over $1,000,000 annually are lost to the Navy from preventable accidents in navy yards; and the man days lost exceed 500,000 per year. Navy yards are organized for war conditions and in a national crisis every dollar and every man-day’s labor may be vital to the safety of the nation. Every worker is an asset to the state and the state as well as the individual suffers when his health or efficiency is impaired.
As conditions have changed so radically since the World War in regard to accident prevention a brief summary is considered essential to understand the social-industrial psychology of today.
Prior to the war, man was considered “the human machine.” Enormous improvements in machinery tended to discount man power. Taylor and Gilbreth standardized tasks to reduce the cost of production and to reduce fatigue and lost motion. This created much criticism and resentment from labor unions, and time studies were forbidden to be made in the Navy. Efficiency engineers condemned the Navy at that time for being “backward.” Today psychologists regard the worker as a human being and not as a performer of the “shortest and speediest methods.” As the use of machinery became more extensive and production was speeded up, accidents became of greater concern. Great emphasis was placed upon the safeguarding of machines and equipment until today most machines are as safe as it is humanly possible to make them. But accidents have increased in greater numbers. Protective apparel became the next solution—goggles, helmets, respirators, gas masks, hard leathers, aprons, shoes—all were designed to meet each special condition. But the percentage of accidents increased. Industrial medicine concentrated on occupational diseases— poisoning from lead, mercury, and arsenic, inhalation of dust and fumes, cataract and eye troubles from heat and light rays, phthisis, cancer, necrosis of the jaw, gassings from carbon monoxide or nitrous fumes. Occupational diseases were so thoroughly studied that protective measures were adopted which practically eliminated accidents from these causes. But accidents were still on the increase. With the outbreak of the war, increased production was demanded and industry at last realized that the worker was no longer a machine but a human being. Human beings possess intelligence and their efficiency depends on psychological as well as on physiological environment. The emphasis on accident prevention was shifted from machines, apparel, occupational diseases, et al., to the human being. Every year since the war the part which human beings play in accidents is being more emphasized.
The Navy Department quickly noted this change in industrial thought and immediately after the war a safety office was organized in the navy-yard division. A trained safety engineer was engaged to reduce accidents and the work that office has since undertaken is one of the highest achievements accomplished by the Navy since the war. The department is handicapped by a lack of direct personal appeal to and control of the workmen. Safety must depend on the man himself, but safety must originate at the top and extend without a single break to the rank and file of the organization. The department can only instruct and direct the safety activities of the various yards with inspirational education. Posters and safety periodicals are furnished monthly; general safety rules are promulgated; statistics are furnished to all yards and stations each month, as to the reasons and causes of accidents; monthly safety competitions among the various yards are conducted; and individual correctional instruction is given as required. Inspections are made by the department’s representative, from which the greatest results are obtained.
With the creation of the office of safety engineering in the department there was also created an office of safety engineering in the various yards. The commandant appoints a commissioned officer as "safety engineer” but unfortunately, it is too often "in addition to your present duties.” These duties are not mentioned in Navy Regulations nor in most yard regulations but are covered in special orders as follows:
(a) To inspect all shops, paying particular attention to all conditions which might be a possible cause of injury or disease, including sanitation, heating, lighting, ventilation, fire prevention, and safety precautions against accidents.
(b) To recommend all necessary sanitary and safety measures and appliances, both inside and outside the shops and buildings, and throughout the station in general. All employees and supervisors shall be encouraged to make safety and other pertinent suggestions to the office of safety engineering.
(c) To follow up each accident and disease which may occur as a result of the work performed or of conditions in or about the station, with a view to determining whether such accidents or diseases were preventable, and to make suitable recommendations for future prevention.
(d) To carry on an educational campaign among employees with a view to enlightening them in matters relative to personal hygiene, accident prevention, and the benefits to be derived from proper habits of living and obedience to the laws of nature. Posters, pamphlets, lectures, and motion picture displays are recommended in this connection.
(e) The safety engineer will keep suitable records of all accidents, illness, and disease and will make out and submit all routine and special reports in connection therewith, including compensation forms, notice of injury, and other reports required by the compensation commission.
Too often the duty is considered in the nature of a rest after three years of strenuous sea duty. Of course, there are the routine reports of accidents and reports to the compensation committee, but if the safety engineer considers his job mostly ballyhoo and is not “sold” on its merits he will probably devote more time to reducing his golf handicap than to reducing his accident handicap. Degrees are being given today by the larger universities in "safety engineering.” It has become an engineering-psychological science. Most commandants and heads of departments do not fully appreciate the situation and developments subsequent to the war. The safety engineer should first be a “human engineer” and have the versatility, personality, and sales ability to“sell” accident prevention. He must arrest attention, arouse interest, create desire, and move to action. The action does not depend so much on what is done as on who does it and how it is done. He must believe in and work for safety at all times.
Psychology’s real interest lies in what is measured; industrial psychology is primarily interested in output. In all the various postgraduate courses of the Navy, what attention is paid to social-industrial psychology? Why not include this subject in all postgraduate courses, including the general line course? A flaw in a mental makeup may be as serious as a flaw in a casting. A study of crystallization of thought or fatigue of workmen is as important a study as crystallization and fatigue of metals. As for the line, will not such a course be especially adaptable and valuable for leadership? Given such a course, the department could ascertain which officers have the greatest interest and ability in the subject and detail these officers for one tour of duty to the various navy yards as safety engineers. The remaining officers would never be detailed as safety engineers but would understand the basic principles of modern efficiency. In time these principles would permeate the entire service.
Until some such selection of safety engineer officers is made, the department should assume when an officer is detailed for this duty that he is not interested in the work and that he has no conception that accident prevention is an obligation as important as any other duty. The department should direct the efforts of the officer at the start and develop his enthusiasm and interest.
Accident prevention can sell itself. A few bulletins on the work that the National Safety Council of North America is undertaking will convince the most skeptical. This council is a cooperative, non-commercial organization representing over 700 commercial plants in the United States, employing over 2,500,000 workmen. The object of the council is national safety in all its various aspects, but it is mainly interested in industrial safety. It represents the best minds of America today in organization and education. An organization of this size cannot exist if its work is just ballyhoo. In one year, through their educational work, they reduced accidents 10.4 per cent for over 2,500,000 men. Individual members of the council have made enormous savings through the direct efforts of their safety engineers. Probably the best example to “sell” accident prevention is the record of the United States Steel Corporation. From 1912 to 1929, it reduced accidents 86 per cent. The Buick Automobile Company reduced accidents 50 per cent in one year; the Union Pacific Railroad 70 per cent in a period of over two years; and the American Rolling Mills 30 per cent in one year. The United States Gypsum’s Genoa plant, by a well-directed educational safety program, has a record of over two years without an accident. Formerly, it was one of the most hazardous plants in the United States. These records were not made by luck and even the briefest study of the methods used to accomplish them should awaken the desire of accomplishment in the embryonic safety engineer.
Once the desire is awakened, the next step should be an inventory of the causes of accidents in the navy yard in question in comparison with what should reasonably be expected. Figures 1 to 4 represent a classification of 19,000 accidents that have occurred in navy yards during the past few years. Figure 1 represents the general classes of accidents. It will be noted that the accidents due to machines not being properly safeguarded and occupational diseases amount to but 0.5 per cent. Unavoidable accidents are those that cannot be prevented; this class is high in shipwork and it is noted that in most industrial work it will average about 8 per cent. A much higher percentage is the class of accidents caused by violation of prescribed safety rules of operation and requirements for use of protective devices. If this class is included with unsafe practice or carelessness, the percentage will total 87.4. To this percentage will be applied the principles of social-industrial psychology as this is the one large tangible factor that can be broken down. The first step for the embryonic engineer is to study the condition of his yard in comparison with Fig. 1. If the safety lacking or unavoidable percentages are too high, these should be investigated at once to ascertain the reasons—the old “prior to war” safeguards are probably lacking. At the same time a comparison should be made as to the causes of accidents, Fig. 2. Are too many accidents occurring from use of hand tools? Similarly, compare the anatomical study of injuries. Is the percentage of eye injuries too high? Figure 4 denotes the hazard rate of the various shops or trades in the navy yard. Are there any relatively unsafe shops? Most yards have general weaknesses that can be readily spotted in this manner by a novice. Certain shops are not safety minded and these can also be readily spotted. For example, if the laborers are scaling without goggles, the laborer’s ratio (Fig. 4) will increase, eye injuries (Fig. 3) will increase, injuries from the “use of hand tools” (Fig. 2) will increase, and so will “failure of employees to rules” (Fig. 1). Thus all four figures tie in together and tell the story. From a study of the four graphs the general accident characteristics of the yard may be determined and a program mapped out to correct the errors.
What of the 87.4 per cent of the accidents in Fig. 1 which are due mainly to unsafe practices? How are these caused? This class is caused by financial worries, family fracases, foolishness, carelessness, sickness, or mental causes. Sickness is one of the large contributory causes of inefficiency and accidents. Mental causes are ignorance, predisposition, inattention, depression, or preoccupation. Here is the main working field of the modern safety engineer trained in social-industry psychology. The department should assist the embryonic engineer to prepare a definite plan or program of safety work, dependent upon the work load characteristics of the yard or station, the geographical location, and the high spots that are to be emphasized.
With a definite program established, the next step is to secure the cooperation of the commandant and the heads of departments. The commandant can do more than any other individual in promoting safety by manifesting an active interest in the accident records and indicating his approval of the work being accomplished. To obtain any worth-while results, his active cooperation is essential. In some cases this will probably prove to be the greatest task that the safety observe safety engineer will encounter. If the commandant is a fatalist and believes that accidents are the work of God, the task will be doubly hard, but educational work should finally break the barrier. Then there is the humane side of accidents that can be used to arouse cooperation—the suffering of the injured as well as that of his dependents. If the commandant is unresponsive, arouse his interest and cooperation by stressing the cost of accidents.
What does an accident cost? There are the direct costs, such as compensation, liability, medical care, etc., that can be calculated with a close degree of accuracy. It is the indirect costs that make accidents so expensive to industry—(1) lost time of the injured employee; (2) lost time of the other employees who stop their work to assist the injured man, to express their sympathy, for curiosity, or other reasons; (3) lost time of leading men, quartermen, and masters who assist the injured employee, investigate the cause of the accident, rearrange the production of work, and assign and train a new employee to take over the injured employee’s work, prepare accident reports, etc.; (4) dispensary treatment and probably hospitalization; (5) injury to tools, material, or government property; and (6) loss of productivity on idle machines. It is estimated that the indirect costs are from four to six times as great as the direct costs.
With a definite safety program supported by the commandant and heads of departments, the safety engineer is ready for the campaign. Accident campaigns are usually conducted along one of three general lines, discipline, bonus, or instruction. By discipline is meant any system where a shop or workmen are punished for accidents that may occur. This is unfortunately the system that is in most general use today in industrial plants and consists of a cash fine, lay off, or even the loss of the job. The average workman or supervisor in navy yards will advocate “fire the man who is responsible for accidents.” Such a system makes for a high labor turnover, and the chances are that the workman fired will be a safer worker than the man who replaces him. We all make mistakes, and it is by correcting mistakes and using mistakes to teach a lesson that progress is made. Statistics show that men who have had one bad accident have learned their lesson and are the most valuable safety-minded examples. If a workman is fined for an accident, he often becomes dissatisfied and it works an additional hardship on his dependents. In navy yards, of course, all that can be done is to discharge the man or suspend him for varying periods. Disciplinary measures tend to force men to be careful but are rapidly being discarded in favor of “leading” the way to safety instead of “driving.” The bonus system is simply “buying safety.” It is effective and will achieve immediate results, but the objection to it is that frequently you are paying too much for safety and misdirecting funds. It is not applicable in the Navy and should not be considered desirable. Safety should be desired and accomplished through education, not purchase.
The instruction system is now generally replacing the disciplinary system in large industrial concerns. Safety campaigns of directional, correctional, and inspirational instruction are carefully planned and are developing a safer practice. The foremen or the shop committees are the key men in the campaign. They disseminate the safety information to the workers. The idea that shops are judged only by quality and quantity of work must be thrown overboard. Safety should be the first consideration every day of every officer, supervisor, and workman. Quality and quantity will increase directly by the amount that accidents are reduced.
The instruction system does not abolish discipline which must be maintained, but the degree of penalty is dependent upon local conditions. Mercy is tempered with justice. For example, the hustler type of workman has a tendency to push a job through to completion and disregard his personal safety. This type of workman is a valuable asset and to penalize him would probably prove a distinct loss to production. How much better it is to teach him to hustle safely.
Once the safety campaign is launched, the commandant and the safety engineer must not be impatient for results. Accidents will decrease but it may take a few months for the movement to gather momentum. Safety must be made a habit and only when that habit has reached 100 per cent can the millennium in industry be realized. With the above program, it will not be realized, but at least a tentative beginning will have been made. To reach it, the study of industrial processes in relation to the safety of the worker must include the whole of conditions, if the study is to be scientific.
We are all aware that physical environment affects the worker and we carefully provide for such physical items as lighting, heating, ventilation, etc. But of more importance is the mental environment. This is a vast field that is still practically untouched and consists of such items as adjustment to economic environment, capacity as wage earners and vocational guidance, welfare activities, housing, recreation, education, rehabilitation of injured workmen, and leadership. Leadership is very important and affects mentally the health, happiness, and efficiency of the workers. Sick leave is more than doubled under the morose, neurotic type of leader. Welfare activities exert a powerful influence in promoting industrial health. Vocational guidance is a measurement of general intelligence and protects against placing a worker of above average intelligence in a low intelligence job, or vice versa. Incorrect placing of workmen in regard to their mental capacities is the direct cause of many accidents.
If a national emergency arises, mobilization of man power in industry may be a fact. Secretary of War Patrick J. Hurley recently stated:
I intend to concentrate much of my effort while in office on the plans for industrial mobilization. I believe in distributing the burdens of war equitably on our whole people. Every citizen must do his full duty to the nation in its time of need, whether he be assigned to the lathe back home or to serving cannon at the front.
During the last war a destroyer was being built at a navy yard in record time. Time was placed before safety. An emergency treatment station was placed by the building ways. An ambulance was assigned to take cases from the treatment station to the hospital and was as busy as any ambulance on the front-line trenches. Employees disregarded their personal safety in their effort to do their bit. Haste makes waste—also human wastage. In our next war, is time to be placed ahead of safety? Can we afford to have a casualty list at home greater than at the front? Such will be the case unless the services are educated in regard to their moral industrial responsibilities and realize that with safety placed first will come ultimate maximum production.