New Britain herald., 1917-11-19
MACHINE BUILDING
 ACCIDENT ANALYSIS
Department Of Labor Studies
 Problem From New Angle

Washington, Nov. 19.-During the 1 past few years there has been wide- 1 spread interest in the subject of in- dustrial accidents and their preven- l tion, and important safety campaigns 1 have been carried on by many em- ployers and by many private and pub 1 lie organizations. No doubt these ef- 1 forts have been successful in reduc- 1 ing the huge toll of death and suffer- ; ing which modern industry levies upon it's workers. But the effective ness of all such efforts has been se- riously handicapped by the general lack Of information regarding the prevalence, causes and effects of &C., cldents in the industries of the coun- 1 try.
 report Bulletin 216) of the Bu- reau of Labor Statistics of the U. S. Department of Labor entitled 'Acci- dents and Accident Prevention in Ma chine Building" supplies this de- tailed information for a large group of plants engaged in the building of different kinds of machines. The character of the machines built by these plants varied greatly, from mammoth locomotives and ships to delicate electrical apparatus, but it is of interest to note that they are all of type for which the war has made enormous demands. Therefore, al- though the present study was made prior to the war, the information re- garding accident hazards in the indus try is now of particular pertinence.
 New Basis Is Time Lost.
 A notable feature of the report is the measurement of accidents accord ing to their severity. Previous studies have been chiefly concerned with the frequency of accident occurrence, and have counted all accidents as of the same value. A broken finger and a broken back have been counted alike in computing accident rates, although clearly the latter is immeaSurably more serious The method offered in this report is to measure each acci- dent according to the resulting amount of time lost. To do this it is necessary, of course, to express fatal and permanent injuries as well as temporary disabilities, in terms of workdays lost This is done by valu- ing a fatal injury, on the basis of life insurance experience. as equivalent to the loss of 30 years of a mans work
 
 ability was rated at 35 years. Other injuries are credited with lower time losses in proportion to their probable effect upon earning capacity.
 Applying this method to the acci- dent data for the machine building in dustry, some very interesting results are obtained. Thus, in the 1914 plants covered by the investigation, the num- Der of accidents occurring in 1912 Q q permanent injuries and l3,199 tem- porary disabilities. This is enuiva- lent to an accident frequency rate of 11S per 1000 full-time (30O-day) workers and severity rate of 5.6 days lost per worker These rates may be entrusted with the experi- ence of a representative steel plant during the same year, for which the frequency rate was 154 and the se- verity rate A days lost. Accidents in the steel plant were thus only about one-third more frequent than in ma chine building, but their severity was 1-2 times as great.
 The accident hazards of the ma chine building plants vary greatly with the character of their products. Those engaged in the making of To- comotives have the highest severity rate-11 days lost per worker-and the builders of ships have the next highest-S days lost per worker.
 Boiler shops Greatest Hazard.
 Classifying the combined plants by departmental divisions, boiler shops and yard labor show by far the great est hazards. Boiler shops have a fre- quency rate of PA cases for 1000 full time (30O-day) workers and a to\ \nf C7 day worker. while yard labor has a frequency rate of 221 and severity rate of 29 days lost. The high rates l of the boiler shops are primarily, the result of insecure trestles and scat 1 folding For the excessive rates in the yard department responsibility rests upon the general neglect of safc location and construction of the trans
 portation systems of many plants. l coupled with lack of safety precau- ] lions and instruction.
 One of the fundamental inquiries in l a study of this character is whether or not accidents are decreasing. A l precise answer is difficult, because of | the fact that very few plants had re- l liable accident records over a period l of years. For one group of plants for
 which such information was obtain
 able for the years 1910 to 1913 the
 frequency rate shows no decrease, but 1 the severity rate. after running as ] high as 6 days in 1910, days in 1911, | and days in 1912, drops to days in 1913. This decrease may reflect
 the more thorough safety organization ! effected in some of these plants in 1912. The fact that the frequency
 rate shows no decline is certainly due
 to the more complete reporting of
 minor accidents in the later years.
 A striking method of showing the
 effect of a good safety system in ac-