The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1918-01-25
WHAT PART IS LABOR PLAYING IN
SAFETY MOVEMENT OF THE SHOP


matter of time when the good
judgment and experience of the
workers in the several states will
correct the shortcomings and inef-
fciencies of such laws. The payment
of cold hard cash as penalties for
industrial accidents has proved more
effective for industrial safety than
all the platitudes and sympathies
ever expressed.
In addition to the enactment of
the workmen's compensation laws,
greater and a more far-reaching hu-
man victory for safety has been won.
In practically every instance the en-
actment of such compensation laws
have carried with them in some form
or another, the abrogation of the
unholy trinity of legal defenses set
up by corporation attorneys and sus-
tanned by the courts whereby many
thousands of workers who had been
injured in industry were deprived of
damages or other protection. This
trinity is, first, the fellow servant
doctrine; second, the claim of as
sumption of risk and, third, the
charge of contributory negligence.
All these antique iniquities designed
to deprive the injured worker of
justic efastened themselves upon the
jurists of the United Kingdom and
the United States under the old mas
ter and servant Interpretation of
common law. There was not a line
of authorized parliamentary statute
on the subject. Probably no other
single precedent set by the courts
has been so harsh and ungracious,
nor has any attitude of the courts
ever been more deeply resented by
the workers of the United States and
the Unitd Kingdom.
Railroad Labor Legislation.
In the interest of every grade of
labor employed on the interstate rail
roads and in behalf of the safety of
the travelling public, many very i'm
portant safety appliance laws have
been enacted by Congress, every one
of which has been originally writ
ten, urged and championed by repre-
sentative labor men. On every such
occasion, without a single exception,
these representatives have had to
meet the bitter antagonism of rail-
road officials and their highly paid
attorneys.
Safety at Sea.
Lest it be forgotten, l herewith
record one of labor's greatest vic
tories for safety when the sixty
third Congress passed the seamen's
bill which greatly improved and in
creased the safety provisions for
those who work and travel on the
high seas.
Trade unionists battled twenty five
years against the wealthies monopo-
lies of the world for this great SAT-
ETY. law. Singular to say, no other
element in society has yet tried to
take this credit from trade unionists.
Marine interests and their subsidiary
profit takers have, however, been
very vociferous in their wholesale
denunciations of congressman and of
labors representatives because of the
passage of the seamen's act.
For all of this, the Lord be thank
ed! When the monopolies and pro-
fiteers vince we know the stroke
gets to the hide.
Shop Diseases.
The subject of safety in the shop,
however, can not be confined to
physical outward accidents, for more
insidious evils than cuts, bruises,
collisions and explosions exist in
shops and factories, tenement houses
and congested cities.
Malaria, typhoid and tuberculosis,
and other contagious diseases have
ravaged the ranks of labor and the
home life of all grades of society.
Volumes could be written on the
pioneer work of the organized work
ers in behalf of better ventilation.
better sanitation, better drainage.
more sunlight, purer water, more
play grounds, shorter working hours
and unadulterated food, as antidotes
for the dread diseases.
The organized cigar makers, print
ing trades, miners, and their associ-
ates are entitled to special credit for
the magnificent public service they
have rendered to society at large in
their constant efforts to conquer the
great white plague and other con-
tagious diseases. Reliable data dis
closes the fact that the average
length of life to cigar makers and
printers has been increased from
fifteen to twenty years since they
started their original campaign in
the early eighties.