DANGER— Men at Work

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 764, 12 March 1954, Page 7

DANGER— Men at Work

And the end is that the workman shall live to enjoy the fruits of his labour; that. his mother shall have the comfort of his arm in her age; and his wite shall not be untimely a widow...

P. H.

Juhnke

EW ZEALAND’S | labour ay force of something over three quarters of a million is plagued, like that of every other country, with an ever-increasing number of accidents. They are caused by overturning tractors, exploding boilers, mushrooming tools, ineffective machinery guards, and the kind of fatigue or carelessness which leads to dropped cases and a multitude of other slips, stumbles and falls, mechanical and human. Many of them are impossible to prevent, but a large percentage are probably avoidable. | The extent of this accident rate, particularly in industry, has created a good

deal of concern in recent years among industrial and government organisations, which lose millions of man-hours annually because of it. This concern led to the formation, on January 1 last, after three years of negotiation, of the National Safety Association of New Zealand, a voluntary and _ non-profit-making organisation. An outline of its aims, and a summary of the present accident situation, is being given in a series of five talks from YA and ZB stations. They are being heard this week from 1YA and 1ZB, and start in other centres as follows: Christchurch, March 15; Wellington, March 29; and Dunedin on April 12. The series is entitled Safety in Industry, and it will begin with a talk by Ian Matheson, of the Workers’ Compensation Board, who is chairman of the National Safety Association. The four succeeding talks will be by H. Botham, a safety consultant with wide industrial experience both in New Zealand: and overseas, who is the Association’s manager. Each talk is about three minutes long. In an interview with The Listener last week, Mr. Botham explained what his organisation was setting /out to do, and how he hoped it would be done. He dates official interest in the ‘accident problem from the formation of the Workers’ Compensation Board in 1950, when the Board found that one of its main responsibilities was the reduction of the accident -rate in industry. The Board found that in New Zealand one ‘person was fatally injured every three. working days, and that three persons were permanently disabled every working day. Furthermore, the annual number of comperisatable accidents exceeds 35,000, and these cost industry | about £8,000,000 a year and result in the loss of ‘about two and a quarter million working, days a year. They also found, | Mr. Botham said, that a vast number of unrecorded accidents, far in excess of the .number eligible for workers’ compensation payments, occutred =

year, and that the loss of productive ‘capacity from this source was incalculable. "Qverseas, in England, Canada, Australia and the United States, much has been done to cope with the accident prob> lem," Mr. Botham said. "But in New Zealand we are lagging behind. These countries showed us from. their experience that many of the causes of accidents cannot be controlled by legislation, but are influenced by subtle human attitudes and feelings. We realised that voluntary effort and a recognition of accident prevention as an essential in sound _ business management ‘could do much to help any official attempt to cope with the problem. And that is why the National Safety Association was formed. Our aim is the promotion of safety education and accident- prevention techniques. Our executive council includes representatives of the Federations of Employ-

ers, Manufacturers, Farmers and Labour, the Institute of Management and the Workers’ Compensation Board." "Could you give us some practical examples of how you hope to reduce accidents?" "We have worked out a detailed plan of action for the next two years," Mr. Botham said. "First of all we want to form voluntary industrial safety groups in the main centres to carry out our ideas on a local or regional basis. We want to set up safety committees in ifirms that don’t already have safety officers, and to organise safety training courses and national safety conferences, In England and America they have run these courses for many years, usually lasting for three weeks. We will explain such things as the interpretation of legal requirements, health welfare, the principles of guarding machines, ventilation and ‘personal safety devices. Here we will probably run two-week courses, and we hope also to do much to help apprentices and other young people entering industry. We also hope to do a good dealin the way of safety promotion through the use of. films, pamphlets, posters, radio scripts and so on to make people more safety conscious than they are at present." , Mr. Botham said that in. July he hoped to give a further series of radio talks on the problem of safety from accidents, and that he also hoped to promote a series of statements and slogans which could be broadcast in such programmes as the "Music While You Work" sessions, which were widely listened to in. factories and other sections of industry. He ‘Said that the National Safety Association did not intend to confine its activities. to industry, but was concerned in all aspects of safety from accidents- throughout the country.