Denver labor bulletin., 1917-11-17

during the past few years there mas
been widespread interest in the sub
ject of industrial accidents and their
prevention, and important safety cam
paigns have been carried on by many
employers and by many private and
public organizations. No doubt these
efforts have been successful in re-
ducing the huge toll of death and suf-
fering which modern industry levies
upon it's workers. But the effective
ness of all such efforts has been Sc
riously handicapped by the general
prevalence, cause. and effects of ac-
cidents in the industries of the coun-
try.
A recent report bulletin 216( of
the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the
U. S. Department of Labor entitled
accidents and Accident Prevention
in Machine Building" supplies this de-
tailed information to large group of
plants engaged in the building of diff
ferent kinds of machines. The char
acter of the machines built by these
plants varies greatly, from mammoth
locomotives and ships to delicate cleo
trical apparatus, but it is of interest
to note that they are all of a type for
which the war has made enormous de-
mands. Therefore, altho the present
study was made prior to the war, the
information regarding accident haz-
ards in the industry is now of partic-
ular pertinence.
A notable feature of the report is
the measurement of accidents accord
ing to their severity. Previous stu
dies have been chiefly concerned with
the frequency of accident occurrence,
and have counted all accidents as of
the same value A broken finger and
broken back have been counted alike
in computing accident rates, altho
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 neces-
sary, of course, to express fatal and
permanent injuries as well as tenn
porary disabilities, in terms of work
days lost. This is done by valueing a
fatal injury, on the basis of life insur-
ance experience, as equivalent to the
loss of 80 years of mans working
life, while total permanent disability
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 accl-
dent data for the machine building in
dustry, some very interesting results
are obtained. Thus, in the 154 plants
covered by the investigation the num-
ber of accidents occurring in 1912 was
3,647, resulting in 81 deaths, All per-
manent injuries, and 1899 temporary
disabilities. This is equivalent to an
accident frequency rate of 118 per
/ 900 full-time (300-day) workers and
a severity rate of Sc days lost per
worker. These rates may be con-
trasted with the experience of rep
resentative steel plant during the
same year, for which. the frequency
rate was 154 and the severity rate ID
days lost Accidents in the steel plant
were thus only about one-third more
frequent than in machine building but
their severity was two and half
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 loco
motives have the highest severity rate
Ii days lost per worker-and the