Bisbee daily review., 1917-11-15
Thursday Morning, November IS, 1917.
ACCIDENTS IN INDUSTRY.

ACCIDENTS IN INDUSTRY.
 During the past few years there has been widespread the subject of industrial accidents and their prevention and important safety campaigns have been carried by many employers and by private and public organizations No doubt these been successful in reducing huge toll death and sui fering which industry eves upon it's workers the effectiveness of all such efforts has been ser ousy handicapped by the general lack of information gardng the prevalence and effects of accidents in the industries of the country.
 recent report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U S. Department of Labor entitled Accidents and accident prevention in machine building" supplies this detailed information for large of plants engaged in building different kinds of machines The char acer built by these plants varied great y mammoth locomotives and ships to delicate cleo trica apparatus it is of interest note that they are all of type for which the has made enormous demands Therefore although the present study made prior to the war information regarding acci dent hazards industry of particular per hence.
 A notable feature of the report is the measurement of accidents according their severity Previous studies chiefly with the frequency of acc dent and have counted all accidents as of the value A broken finger and broken back have counted alike computing accident rates al though clearly the latter is mmeasuraby serious The method offered in this report is each accident according the resulting amount of time lost to do this necessary course express fatal and permanent injuries well temporary disabilities, in terms of workdays This is done by vauing fatal injury on the basis of life experience. as oF of while total permanent disability rated S5 years Other injuries lower time losses in pro portion probable effect upon earning capacity
 Applying this method the accident data for the building industry very interesting results obtained Thus in the 194 plants covered by the in vestigaion the number of accidents occurring in 1912 1S647 resulting in 37 deaths All permanent injuries and S199 temporary disabilities. This is equivalent to accident frequency of 1S per 1000 fuime CSoo day) workers and severity of 5.6 days lost per worker These may be contrasted with the expo rience of representative steel plant during the year. for which the frequency rate 154 and the rity rate IA days lost Accidents in the steel plant thus only about onethird frequent than in chine building but their severity 2A times great
 The accident hazards of the machinebulding plants greatly with the character of their products Those engaged the making locomotives have the highest severity rae1 days lost per workerand the builders of ships have the hgher-S days lost per worker
 Classifying the combined plants by departmental divi- sons boiler shops and yard labor show by far the great Boiler shops have frequency rate of 224 per 1000 fuime (SOOday) workers and severity 27 days per 3OOday worker while yard labor has frequency of 221 and a severity rate of % days The high of the boiler shops are, pri mary the result of insecure trestes and scaffoding For the excessive in the yard department respon- sby upon the general neglect of safe location and construction transportation systems many plants coupled with lack of safety precautions and instruction
 One of the fundamental inquiries in study of this character is whether accidents decreasing A precise difficult because the very few plants had reliable accident records period of years For group of plants for which such in formation obtanable the years 1910 1913 the frequency shows decrease but severity rate af