The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1926-07-03
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which is used there, and precipitates
the acid onto the bodies of those be-
low. The same thing might occur in
the benzol plant. Or fire in the far
distillation plant might heat UP the
tank Of benzol obtained from the dis
tillation sufficiently to cause it to ex-
plode. And so on.
Furthermore, only those dangers
have been discussed which are capable
Of giving rise to accidents of the d.
mansions of a catastrophe. The
numerous possibilities of accident
turnout the plant which might cause
the death of an individual worker here
or there have not been mentioned.
These are mostly mechanical in ma
ture. The coal crushing plant pre-
sents the same dangers as any other
crushing plant anywhere else. There
are numerous possibilities of accidents
among those working on the ovens and
around the heavy oven machinery
the coke pusher and the quenching
car. The workers who go inside tanks
that have contained benzol to clean
them out are often taking their lives
in their hands. Benzol vapors, being
so heavy, are exceedingly difficult to
remove from a tank and many a
worker has died from benzol poisoning
on entering tank that was suppos-
edly freed from vapor.
In which direction, then, does safety
lie? Not in the direction of moral
speeches to the employees, safety COM
mittees and brigades, and notices "A
fire in this plant may cost every man
his job" We can be frank and agree
with the companies this far: That
care on the part of the employees is
extremely necessary. And then we
can inform them that this only
scratches the surface of the safety
question. Safety requires two ele-
ments: a safe installation, and safe
operation. In every part of the plant
there is safe way and an unsafe way
in which the apparatus can be in
stalled. There are safe and unsafe
types of apparatus. Usually the safe
installations are more expensive.
Probably, in any particular plant,
some of the dangers enumerated here
do not exist; they may have been
minimized or obviated There are
aften special safety devices that cover
certain risks. But these also cost
money. In general, it may be said
that with an unsafe installation, no
amount of care in operation can guard
against disasters.
In the same way there are safe and
unsafe methods of operation. The
safe methods usually take longer or
are more expensive in other ways. It
is easy to trumpet Safety First" in
speeches, in written notices and on
! signboards, and yet to give verbal in
structions or demand certain results
that involve unsafe methods of opera
ton. No safe installation can be so
foolproof as to guard against unsafe
methods of operation.
VET some industries will probably
i never be absolutely safe. Even
under Communism we will still have
industrial catastrophes. Industry rep
resents our conquest over Nature.
This conquest is woefully incomplete
and even under Communism the strug-
gle with Nature will still be going on.
We will probably still have an occa-
sional mine disaster, death roll at
sea and in the air, by-product coke
catastrophe. Even increased research
will probably never entirely eliminate
the danger. The greatest Industrial
explosion in history-that at Oppau,
Germany, in 1921-the explosion of an
immense mass of material that Is or
dinarily never considered explosive, is
still unexplained. But the enormous
difference lies in this: under Commu-
nism industrial disasters will be at the
scientifically irreducibIe minimum.
So long as an economic system pre-.