Something for Jon F

[m-14970@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Hugh Rodwell)]

Jon,

This is from Scientific American, 100 years ago.


        Sixteen thousand railroad employees were killed, and 170,000 crippled,
        in the seven years from 1888 to 1894. The awful record of the
killed and
        injured seems incredible; few battles in history show so ghastly a
        fatality. A large percentage of these deaths were caused by the use of
        imperfect equipment by the railroad companies; twenty years ago it was
        practically demonstrated that cars could be automatically coupled, and
        that it was no longer necessary for a railroad employee to imperil his
        life by stepping between two cars about to be connected. In
response to
        appeals from all over, the United States Congress passed the Safety
        Appliance Act in March 1893. It has or will cost the railroads
        $50,000,000 to fully comply with the provisions of the law. Such
        progress has been made that the death rate has dropped by 35 per cent.


Similarities with the situation today?

1) The vast time elapsing between proof of a safe, worker-friendly
technology and its introduction in daily operations;

2) The necessity of legislation to force this introduction on the bosses;

3) The emphasis on the cost of obeying the law rather than the cost of
killing workers;

4) The inability of 'liberal', 'progressive' media to make anything
sensible of the facts they present or make any links with other industries
or society as a whole;

5) No mention of unions or any articulated employee opinion at all.


Must be a lot more.

Cheers,

Hugh




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