In fourteen years a total of 25,853 men saved, by educational work and by the taking of precautions, from serious injury, many of them from death. Probably two-thirds of the number had wives and children, and so some seventeen thousand families were saved from sorrow, from the loss of or injury to their heads. But this is not all. The figures represent the saving accomplished in the mines, mills, and so on, of the Steel Corporation itself. No account can be obtained of the number of men employed by other steel companies, or in other industries, who, by reason of the example set by the Corporation, were saved from death or loss of limb. And the safety campaign is yet in its infancy. The men who are devoting themselves to it look forward to the day when the only accidents that shall occur will be those that may be said truly to be unavoidable, and the number of men killed or injured in industry will have been reduced to a minimum.
A concrete example of the results of the safety programme is afforded by comparing the figures for accidents in the coal-mining industry in the United States and other countries with those in the Corporation’s mines.
| DEATHS PER MILLION TONS PRODUCED | |||||
| 1915 | 1916 | 1917 | 1918 | 1919 | |
| Scotland | 3.35 | 4.32 | 4.03 | 4.55 | |
| South Wales | 5.84 | 5.51 | 6.72 | 6.48 | |
| Great Britain | 4.38 | 4.39 | 4.70 | 5.24 | |
| United States | 4.27 | 3.77 | 4.14 | 3.80 | 4.24 |
| H. C. Frick Coke Company | 1.75 | 1.89 | 2.20 | 2.38 | 2.81 |
| TONS COAL PRODUCED PER DEATH | |||||
| Scotland | 298,342 | 231,627 | 248,266 | 219,870 | |
| South Wales | 171,174 | 181,634 | 148,822 | 154,312 | |
| Great Britain | 228,402 | 227,807 | 212,652 | 190,998 | |
| United States | 234,297 | 265,094 | 241,618 | 262,873 | 235,918 |
| H. C. Frick Coke Company | 567,098 | 528,735 | 493,188 | 419,758 | 363,844 |
N.B. Figures for Frick Coke Co. (United States Steel) and for United States apply only to underground workers. Figures for other countries include workers above ground where casualties are lower.
Has the Steel Corporation really gained from its large expenditures for safety work? That it has secured returns in the way of loyalty and increased efficiency can hardly be doubted; but has there been any tangible monetary saving? The economy in the matter of compensation payments saved is sufficient to answer this question. A careful calculation made several years ago by the Safety Bureau showed that had the same number of accidents occurred in the three years, 1911–1913, as occurred in 1906, when the safety campaign was organized, the big company’s disbursements, as a result, to the injured workmen and their families would have been several millions of dollars more than the entire amount expended in safety work. The aggregate saving to date would probably run well into the tens of millions.
The gain in production that is derived from increased safety in manufacturing processes is also an important financial consideration. In the first place, every accident means a more or less prolonged interruption, possibly a complete though temporary cessation of operations, with a consequent loss. Next, it means that a new man must be trained to fill the place vacated by the injured worker. It will be a happy day for industry when every employer realizes that the injury of a workman is as harmful, from the viewpoint of profits alone, as a breakdown of a piece of machinery. The human machine is no less important than that made of steel or wood. And safety appliances are insurance against the breakdown of that machinery.
It is the first step that counts. Once started on the job of saving the employees of the Corporation itself from injury and mutilation the ambition of the men in charge of this work extended and reached out through the steel trade, then to other industries and finally to other countries.
Strictly speaking, safety should be classified under the general head of “Welfare.” But in practice a distinction must be drawn between what may be considered the plain duty of the employer to prevent needless accidents—a duty to the workmen and a duty to himself—and the work that reaches out and, by bettering the worker’s lot generally, benefits his family and the community in which he lives.
Work of this character grows of its own impetus. It is doubtful if the Corporation’s management, when it first outlined its propaganda for helping employees to lead happier and healthier lives, realized how far afield it would be carried, how many different activities the work would come to include.
Each step accomplished suggests another and often a bigger. As the welfare campaign progresses its workers become imbued with enthusiasm, make more demands upon the Corporation’s finances to carry out their ideas. And so the welfare programme has taken on a broad scope, has a wide horizon, and will have a still wider one as the years roll by.