Evening star., 1916-08-20

Tho Department Of Labor mas 10se
adopted . new system for computing
the accident rates In In
Accident dustrial establishments
cA.u. in this country. It 10
ota'is1cs. tho opinion Of onacials
of that department that accident sta
tistics as they are now tabulated are IN
a most unsatisfactory state.
In tho United States. as we'll a. In
European nations. tho statistics consist
Of giving tho number of fatal and non
fatal accidents by industries. The In
dustry classincations are usually un-
satisfactory. Accident rates per 1000
workers are seldom shown In tho United
States in these various reports. and
when they are shown they are praoti-
cally worthless because no one can
know what 4 thousand workers"
means.
Besides this these tabulated figures
rarely give tho causes of tho accidents
with any detail. SO that in the future
similar accidents can be prevented. La
Dor officials say that in only a very
few establishments is the meaning of
an accident rate clearly comprehend
curate records are kept of the number
of men employed and the hours
worked by each. This is what the de-
partment desires and is part of the
scheme which 1t will try to have
perfected The keeping Of such rec
of the total number of man hours
worked by the establishment during
the course Of tho year-that is. the
theoretical number of hours required
by one man to turn out the years work,
or what amounts to the Same thing, tho
theoretical number Of men required to
do this work in one hour
Accident rates heretofore have. the
officials say. with very few exceptions.
given merely the crude number of in
less of whether the establishments
worked half time or full time-whether
the average time worked per employe
was four hours a day or ten hours a
day throughout the year. Furthermore,
up to this time, rates have been con-
structed on tho assumption that all In
juries are equal. that a broken back
and broken cutfcle have the same I'm
poItance in accident records.
The Department Of Labor. In Its studies
OF accidents in the machine building in
dustry and in the iron and steel in
dustry. has first ascertained from the
time records the number of man-hours
worksA~per annum in the establish
greater clearness the officials have then
converted the man-hours into ful1-time
workers. The full-time worker Is one
who works ten hours per day for 800
days each year. or 1000 hours per an
mum. From that basis the report is
compiled. One of the officials Of the
department has recently said:
The statement that the accident rate
for 1915 in a given establishment was
seventy-two per 1000 employees Is ut
terly indefinite and meaningless, be-
cause % the number Of employees
varies from day to day. (2) the working
day varies in different plants all the
way from fourteen hours to eight hours
or less, f3) some plants operate 365
days in the year. other as low as $50
days; 90 the hours worked per day
vary from season to season, and go
both the hours per day and the days
per year vary from year to year with
fluctuations in industry. The only ac-
curate method of calculating accident
rates. then. is to ascertain the man.
hours worked in a year and convert
man-hours into full-time workers by
dividing by 1000 hours. An accident
rate of III per 1000 full-time workers
shows accurately the frequency of acci-
dents in relation to the hours workers
are exposed to the hazard of accident"