Chapter 1

Safety and Health Movement

Then and Now

Major Topics
Developments before the Industrial Revolution.
Milestones in the safety movement.
Tragedies that have changed the safety
movement.
Role of organized labor.
Development of accident prevention programs.
Development of Safety Organizations.
Safety and Health Movement Today.

Safety Versus Health

Safety is concerned with injury causing
situations. Safety is concerned with hazards to
humans that result from sudden severe
conditions.
Health is concerned with disease causing
conditions. Health deals with adverse reactions
to prolonged exposure to dangerous but less
intense hazards.
An overly stressed worker may be prone to
unintentionally forget safety precautions and thus
may cause an accident.

Causes of Improvement in
Workplace Safety
Improvements in safety have been the result of
pressure for legislation to promote safety and
health, the steadily increasing cost associated
with accidents and injuries, and the
professionalization of safety as an occupation.
Improvements in the future are likely to come as
a result of greater awareness of the cost
effectiveness and resultant competitiveness
gained from a safe and healthy workforce.

Code of Hammurabi
The Code of Hamurabi (Babylonian king in
2000 B.C.) contained clauses dealing with
injuries, allowable fees for physicians, and
monetary damages assessed against
those who injured others.
If a man had caused the loss of a
gentlemans eye, his own eye shall be
caused to be lost.

Development of the First Organized

Safety Program
When the industrial sector began to grow in the
United States hazardous working conditions
were commonplace.
Factory inspection was introduced in
Massachusetts in 1897.
In 1869 the Pennsylvania legislature passed a
mine safety law that required two exits from all
mines.
In 1892, the first recorded safety program was
established in a Joliet, Illinois steel plant.

Federick Taylors Connection to the

Safety Movement
Around 1900 Federick Taylor began studying
efficiency in manufacturing.
His purpose was to identify the impact of various
factors on efficiency, productivity, and
profitability.
He drew the connection between lost personnel
time and management policies and procedures.
This connection between safety and
management represented a major step towards
broad-based safety consciousness.

Development of the National Safety

Council
The Association of Iron and Steel Electrical Engineers
(AISEE) formed in the early 1900s, pressed for a
national conference on safety.
As a result the first meeting of the Cooperative Safety
Congress (CSC) took place in Milwaukee in 1912.
A year after the meeting of the CSC, the National
Council of Industrial Safety was established in Chicago.
In 1915, this organization changed its name to National
Safety Council (NSC).
NSC is now the premier safety organization in the United
States.

Impact of Labor Shortages in World

War II on the Safety Movement

From the end of World War I (1918) through the 1950s safety
awareness grew steadily.
During this period industry in the United States arrived at two critical
conclusions:
(1) There is a definite connection between Quality and Safety.
(2) Off-the-job accidents have a negative impact on productivity.
This became clear to manufacturers during World War II when callup and deployment of troops had employers struggling to meet their
labor needs.
For these employers, loss of a skilled worker due to injury or for any
other reason created an excessive hardship.

Primary Reason behind the

passage of the OSH Act

The 1960s saw the passage of a flurry of legislation promoting

workplace safety. These laws applied to a limited audience of
workers.
According to the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) more
significant legislation was needed because the state legislated
safety requirements only in specific industries had inadequate safety
and health standards, and had inadequate budgets for enforcement.
In the late 1960s more than 14,000 employees were killed annually
in connection with their jobs, and work injury rates were rising.
These were the primary reasons for the passage of the federal
Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) of 1970. It represents
the most significant legislation to date in the history of the safety
movement.

How workplace tragedies have

affected the Safety Movement

Safety and health tragedies in the workplace have greatly accelerated the pace
of the safety movement in the United States.

Hawks Nest Tragedy: Workers spent as many as 10 hours per day breathing the
dust created by drilling and blasting a passageway through a mountain located
in the Hawks Nest region of West Virginia that had an unusually high silica
content. Silicosis is a disease that normally takes 10 to 30 years to show up in
exposed workers. At Hawks Nest workers began dying in as little time as a
year. Approximately one million workers in the United States are still exposed to
silica every year, and 250 people die annually from silicosis. Today
administrative controls, engineering controls, and personal protective
equipment are used to protect workers in a dusty environment.
Asbestos Menace: In 1964 Dr. Selikoff linked asbestos to lung cancer and
respiratory diseases. It was found in homes, schools , offices, factories, ships
and filter of cigarettes. In the 1970s and 1980s asbestos became a controlled
material.
Bhopal Tragedy: In 1984 over 40 tons of Methyl isocyanate (MIC) and other
lethal gases, including hydrogen cyanide leaked into the northern end of
Bhopal killing over 3000 people. Union Carbide had to pay $470 million in
compensatory damage. In the US it led to the Emergency Planning and
Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA) of 1986.

Role of Organized Labor in

Advancement of Safety Movement
Organized labor has played a crucial role in the
development of the safety movement in the
United States.
From the Industrial Revolution time, organized
labor has fought for safer working conditions and
appropriate compensation for workers injured on
the job.
Many of the earliest developments in the safety
movement were the result of long and hardfought battles by organized labor.

Fellow Servant Rule, Contributory

Negligence, and Assumption of Risk
The Fellow Servant Rule held that employers
were not liable for workplace injuries that
resulted from the negligence of other employees.
Contributory Negligence: If the actions of
employees contributed to their own injuries, the
employer was not held liable.
Assumption of Risk: People who accept a job
assume the risks that go with it.
These employer biased laws were overturned in
all states except in New Hampshire where the
fellow servant rule still applies.

The three Es of Safety

Engineering, Education, and Enforcement
The Engineering aspects of a safety program involve
making design improvements to both product and
process to decrease potential hazards.
The Education aspect of a safety program ensures that
employees know how to work safely, why it is important
to do so, and that safety is expected by management.
The Enforcement aspect of a safety program involves
making sure that employees abide by safety policies,
rules, regulations, practices and procedures. Supervisors
and fellow employees play a key role in the enforcement
aspect of modern safety programs.

Development of Safety
Organizations
Fig 1-3, page 12: Organizations concerned with
workplace safety American Society of Safety
Engineers, National Safety Council (NSC),
Fig 1-4, page 13: Governmental Agencies
concerned with workplace safety
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),
National Institute for Occupational Safety and
Health (NIOSH), Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA),

Integrated Approach to Safety and

Health
Learn more through sharing knowledge about health problems in the
workplace, particularly those caused by toxic substances.
Provide a greater level of expertise in evaluating health and safety
problems.
Provide a broad database that can be used to compare health and
safety problems experienced by different companies in the same
industry.
Encourage accident prevention.
Make employee health and safety a high priority.
OSHA reinforces the integrated approach by requiring companies to
have a plan for doing at least the following:
1. Providing appropriate medical treatment for injured or ill workers.
2. Regularly examining workers who are exposed to toxic
substances.
3. Having a qualified first-aid person available during all working
hours.

Modern Industrial Companies may

include the following positions:

Industrial Hygiene Chemist and/or Engineer: Companies that use

toxic substances periodically test the work environment. Dust levels,
ventilation and noise levels are also monitored. Unsafe conditions or
hazardous levels of exposure can be identified and corrected or
preventive measures can be taken.
Radiation Control Specialist: Companies that use or produce
radioactive material employ specialists to monitor radiation levels to
which workers may be exposed, test workers for level of exposure,
respond to radiation accidents, develop plans for handling radiation
accidents, and implement decontamination procedures when
necessary.
Industrial Safety Engineer or Manager: They are responsible for
developing and carrying out the companiysoverall health and safety
program including accident prevention, accident investigation, and
education and training. (Jobs with this one course)
The complexities of the modern workplace have made safety and
health a growing profession.

Summary
A milestone in safety is the passage of OSHA in 1970.
Labor unions have worked to overturn anti labor laws
inhibiting safety.
Health problems in the workplace include lung disease in
miners, and lung cancer tied to asbestos.
The asbestos menace, and Bhopal disaster have
changed the face of the safety movement.
Accident prevention techniques include fail safe designs,
lockout, PPE, redundancy and timed replacements.
A leading safety organization is the American Society of
Safety Engineers.
A safety team may include a safety engineer, nurse, and
dietician.

Home Work
Do questions 1, 8, 10 and 11 on pages 16-17
and turn it in next week.
1. To what causes can improvement in
workplace safety made to date be attributed?
8. Explain the primary reasons behind the
passage of the OSH Act.
10. Define the following terms: fellow servant
rule, contributory negligence, and assumption of
risk.
11. Explain the three Es of Safety.