Information Circular 6109: The National Safety Competition to Assist in the Reduction of Mine and Quarry Accidents
Information Circular 6109: The National Safety Competition to Assist in the Reduction of Mine and Quarry Accidents by United States Department of Commerce…
Public-domain full text preserved in the Mountain Man Mining Library. Original source: archive.org.
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93 CircuLAR 6109 AprRiL, 1929
3 Information Circular
Department Of Commerce - Bureau Of Mines
THE NATIONAL SAFETY COMPETITION TO ASSIST IN THE REDUCTION OF MINE AND QUARRY ACCIDENTS
By
W. W. Adams
Circular No. 6109, : April, 1929, onde poet 2 :
a + INFORMATION CIRCULAR DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE - BUREAU OF MINES
‘THE NAPIONAL SAFETY COMPETITION To ASSIST IN THE REDUCTION OF MINE AND QUARRY aCcIDENTsL
. " Adans®
: . For. the : past cote years the United. States Bureau of Pisa has conducted a safety contest in'which approximately 300 mines and quarries representing 30 of the 48 States - have participated yearly. This contest, which is designated the
"National Safety Competition," has for its underlying purpose the promotion of . Safety in the mineral aerabdad hie the development of re ——- among the , - Competing. ne ee
“The. inmediate- ebiect Py the contest is the winning of a trophy ‘mown as “the Sentinels of Safety, which. portrays in bronze a mother and child greeting: the
‘father upon his. safe: return from work. The name of.the.mine or quarry which wins
. the right to hold the trophy for a year will be engraved on the front of the pedestal, There are i of haces tion meal eee by the papneneye™ a magazine. eee a ne
: Whenever a ‘aomeny seins the trophy a formal presentation ceremony is held, At these exercises, ali.of.the officers and men connected with the winning plant, as well asa representative of the Bureau of Mines,-are present.. The bronze tro-
‘phy ‘is pres sented to the company © ‘and a ‘certificate issued by the Bureau of Mines
is awarded. ta each employee whose untiring efforts contributed toward the victory Of ‘his mine, . Thus there is ‘public recognition of the fact that only by close and hearty honperanton ‘of i al and employee can safety be sia effectively promoted,
Our toiee Secretary: of Henne. the Honorable Herbert Hoover, now Presideit-Elect of the United States, has sent a personal letter of congratulation to' the winning companies at the close of each year's contest. His personal inter- est in this subject has been an inspiration to those of us on whose shoulders the conduct of the. contest ae sects :
‘The scope of the iakead is indicated by the volume of sepnimurs to hazardg as represented by the numberof man hours worked: each year. The first. year's con- test represented 68 million man hours of: work, the second 95 million man hours; -and-the third 92 million man hours; this means about 28 thousand men were.
. répresented the first year,. AQ. thousand men. al —" year, and 38 thousand men a third year, 7 tae 2
‘T Read by ne re of the’ Director, U.S. pocean of ey “before a pesting of the Coal Mining Institute of America, Pittsburgh, Pa., on Dec. lz, 1928.
The Bureau of Mines will welcome reprinting of this article, but requests that the following footnote acknowledgment be used: "Printed by ermission of the Director, U. S. Bureau of Mines, (Not subject to copyright. +f
2 Supervising statistician, U. 5. Bureau of Mines.
‘Inf, Cir. 6109
Approximately 80 per cez:nt of the companies entering the contest are abie - to remain throughout the period. The present year's enrollment of 322 plants exceeds that of any abl deal contest,
Companies that enroll in the contest are dividea into five groups accord — “tng to the commodities produced; that is, they are classified under anthracite
Coal mines, bituminous coal mines, metal mine s and nonmetallic mineral mines, - quarries and open-pit mines, i a
The National Safety Competition considers the accidents of all employees, both surface and underground, but eligibility in the contest is confined to those mines vhat employ..50. or more men underground and to quarries or open-pit mines which have: 2 ‘or. more men in the pit. An inine s and. b esalalsise must mpetare for at ae 150 daye of the year. ee Paint oe
“Bach sbicaad agrees to furnish tHe Pistesn: of Mines with 2 a ery of . each individual accident that disables an employée ‘beyond the day:-of the. accident. A carbon copy of the report which the company furnishes to the State Industrial Commission is sufficient, In addition to the accident reports, each company fur- nishes monthly reports of the number of man’ hours worked." This: last item is used as a basis for: Calculating the accident. rates ‘hich ‘determine: baa nes ee ing of the various ata emai : ,
More ones 100 coal aes were enrolled in’ the joatant for the am year, The sided of their safety efforts will be announced early in the new year,
The annual iatake contests began in 1925; °-In that year:94 coal mines were enrolled and 59 succeeded in remaining in the race until.the.close of the year, _For various: reasons somp..of the companies had to drop out, and others: were - eliminated because of incomplete accident records. “The enrollment for the second ' Year was the same as in the first year, but 78 instead of 59 mines. continued until the’ close of the contest period. In 1927, the third year, the enrollment showed SS coal mines, 68 of which remained until the close of the year. The present year, 1928, with an enrollment. of 114.coal mines, including 90 bituminous mines ir 11 States; should show a larger number of Companies it alia the contest than ad — year.
One of the conspicuous tale ‘revealed by the National Safety Competition is that most mines and quarries have much better safety records than one might be led to believe from the: accident rates: that. are so widely broadcast over the country. The stone-quarrying industry offers a striking illustration of this fact, Eighty-six per cent-of’the quarries-that took part in the 1927 contest had safety records wnich were “better ‘than the: average for the quarry group. That is to say, while the average ‘actident-severity rate-for all quarries, was 4.4, 86 per cent of the individual plants had accident-rates that were less and therefore better than this figure, and only 14 per cent had accidert-rates which weré higher,
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Similar, but less striking, was the record for bituminous coal mines. Sixty-two per cent of the bituminous mines last year had rates that were better than the group rate, and 3€ ner cent had rates that were worse than the group average, In the contest of two years ago, 69 per cent of the bituminous mines had favorable rates, as against 1 per cent having unfavorable rates.
That has been said of quarries and bituminous coal mines was also true to
a greater cr less degree of metal mines, nonmetallic-mineral mines ang anthracite mines,
Attention is directed .to the remarkable safety records of some of the Companies as they have been revealed by the National Safety Competition. The United States Coal and Coke Co. operates several coal mines at Gary, in the southern part of West Virginia. That company has won the trophy three years in succession; its No. 6 mine was the winner in the first and second year's contests, and its No. 2 mine was the winner in the third year, .In the first year, No. 6 . mine, in which more than 300 men were employed, had only 11 accidents. All of them were comparatively slight, as they resulted in only 122 days of disability. The accident-severity rate for mine was only 0.3, whereas the rate for all of the bituminous coal mines was 10.3, In the following year the same mine had an eccident rate of only 0.2 as against 10.7 for the whole group. In the third year No. ¢-mine of the same company was the winner, with an accident. rate of only 0.1. as compared with 15.7 for the whole bituminous group. Pennsylvania coal mine, the Clearfield Bituminous Coal Corporation's mine at Rossiter, Indiana County, Pa., was given honorable mention in the first year's contest, That mine's accident- severity rate was 0.7 as compared with the group rate of 10.2. All of the bituminous mines that won honorable mention in the second year's contest were mines situated in West Virginia and were operated by the United.States Coal and Coke Co. The same company won three out of the four awards of honorable mention in the third year's contest; the fourth award was won by the Panther coal mine een by the United States: uel Co. at Heiner, ae
The records from: which vines instances are cited are thoroughly dependable, as they have been certified for completeness and accuracy by each of the companies concerned, The records indicate how asi ila from the standpoint of safety, @ coal mine can be made.
What. has ‘been, said of bituminous coal mines might also be said of quarries and other types of mines, For example , the trophy for the metal mine group in 1925 was awarded to a zinc mine ope rated by the New Yorx Mining Co., at Picher, Okla., for having an accident-severity rate of only 0.2 as compared with a rate of 9.1 for the whole metal-mine: group... An even Detter record was established by the winners of the next two. annual contests in. the metal-mine group. The trophies in these two years were awarded to metal mines that were operated without a single lost-time accident. The 1926 tronhy was awarded to the Federal Mining and Smelting ' Co.'s lead and sinc mine at Baxter Springs, Kans., and the 1927 trophy was awarded to the Bristol iron-ore mine at Crystal Falls, Mich., operated by the Bristol Mining Co.’ In the field of-nonmetaklic mineral mines, the winners of the contests during the past three years were a gypsum mine at Gypsun, Ohio, operated dy the
Inf. Cir. 6109
United States Gypsum Co., a gypsum mine at Grand Rapids, Mich., onerated by the Beaver Products Co., and the Marquette Cerent Manufacturing Co.'s limestone mine at La Salle, Ill. In the last two years the winning mine in , this group was oper- ated with no lost- -time accidents whatever,
The trophy winners in the quarry and open-pit mine srowps were the Security Limestone quarry of the North American Cement Oc., at Security, Md., anothor lime- stone quarry operated by the same company at Martinsburg, V. Va., and the Mitchell limestone quarry operated by the Lehigh Portland Sement Co. at Mitchell, Inc. As only one Company can win the prize, special recognition or honorable mention is given to the couwpanies ranking second, third, fourth, and fifth in the cempetition. This recognition is in the form of a letter from the Director of the Bureau of Mines advising the company of its high rank in the competition. In addition to this, honorable mention is also given to any company that operates its plaat throughout the year without a single lost-time accident. There is perhaps no better way of securing and maintaining close cooperation between company and its employees in the realia of accident-prevention than by pili in such an endeavor as that afforded: by the National cab Cometition.
Coal mining is the largest single branch of the mineral industry in the.
; United States; it employs three quarters of a million mer as compared with one- quarter of a million men employed in all other mines and quarries. Yet coal min- ing, important as. it is, has no uniform records of the 150 thousand. or more non- fatal injuries that occur every year. Records of fatal accidents are fairly well . maintained by the State mine inspectors and by the United States Bureau cf Mines through the cordial cooperation and assistance of the State inspectors, It is in the class of nonfatal injuries: that the potential accidents of mining can best be studied with a view to their prevention, The avérage nonfatal injury disables the workman for 10 days and hid beter beech? averaze production loss of 60 tons of coal, It is probable that the yearly loss of production from temmorary injuries alone represents a tonnage of not less than’20 million dollars' worth of coal. These losses can be reduced, but to bring about the reduction requires more than well- intentioned safety efforts, Definite records of accidents should be kent for the whole industry so that standards of progress may be established and every company may be enabled to learn whether its individnal accomplishments toward safety com- pare favorably or unfavorably with that of the industry as a whole. Such records
should be made available to the smaller producers who lack the resources of some
of the larger companies to’ carry on their safety studies independently. The co- operation of the larger companies is therefore needed and is ialeniianias d desired for the benefit of the industry as a whole. Pa i 7
In the absence of. uniform records ‘for the entire Coal industry, the National safety Competition has made available uniform and era accident records for a small part ‘of the industry--a very small part, indeed, but one which should grow from year to year. So far as I know, these are ‘the only records cover- ing all accidents causing lost time amounting to one day or more that are prepared in such a way as to make possible a fair comparison of the accident rate of one State with that of another State and at the same time uO: ‘establish a general basic rate as a standard for all mines, 2
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a... ‘ Siacaiaiil as. ‘thé: ‘National- Safety . Competition. solprises ‘the redords of .coal mines, metal mines, “and: stoné quarries from the various States, it will.lay a foundation for determining the true relative hazards, between - the States and their different kinds of plants. This information should be useful in helping ‘to, develop more equitable insurance jabed for the different brariches of mining, That is.to say, the records will help to develop the mathematical constants which determine the fixing of accident- -insurance rates, With these constants established, ‘the relative cost. of accidents may be determined, for it should be said-that “insurance. figures now available do not reveal the true. relative hazards as between industries in different States, Such ‘statistics do not purport to show more than the. actual receipts and disbursements on account of accidents. The true costs of accidents, as distinguished from the actual payments made on account of them, are - basic ard’ should be. portrayed.in their true. proportions without reference to ‘Ghanges in the compensation laws of the different States and without ere TPORS to seeder coee haa the — scales of the employees,
ar ‘the. ceed time ‘the difficulty; if not the impossibility, of comparing the - frequency of.accidents in one State with that in another:State, is shown by a study ‘of the classes of nonfatal injuries covered in the yearly reports published by a féw of the State inspection departments. The reports; published by the Pennsylvania Depart ment. of Mines cover only ‘injuries that cause 60 or more days of disability. This means that more than 90 per cent of. the injuries which are probably taking place are not covered by the published figures of that ‘department. If accident rates were calculated on the published figures only they would appear ‘extremely low and would reflect a very small part of the injuries that are. actual- “ly occurring, The West Virginia Department of Mines also publishes figures that -peppear to omit many lost-time injuries; ‘The Illinois reports apparently cover -only: ?~day accidents, which means that more than 30 ver cent of the injuries are aria dea The a for Alabama, contains no statistics of nonfatal injuries.
os In this eanaaskien, it’ is observed that. when a. State inspector's annual published report fails to show the numberof injuries. causing only 1 day of dis- ability, the report is in that respect 6 per. cent incomplete: that is, 6 per cent of the injuries have been left out. If the report omits 1 and 2 day accidents, it ls le per cent incomplete, If all accidents of less than 7 days' disability are omitted, the report is 36 per cent incomplete. If accidents causing less than 10 days! disability are omitted, the report is about 50 per cent incomplete, and if only 30-day-and-up accidents are counted, then the report is more than 85 per cent incomplete. It is obvious, therefore, that whenever an injury rate is mentioned, Care should be exercised to state what class of injuries are included, so that the injury rate may be clearly understood,
These illustrations indicate how fragmentary the records of nonfatal injuries at coal mines are at the present time - a condition for which the State inspectors are not necessarily responsible. Mary of the inspectors are handicapped by inadequate personnel and finances to handle the volume of work which complete reports of nonfatal injuries would entail. Yet as long as human beings are injured in large numbers it should be somebody's business to gather together all obtain- able information on this subject with a view to focusing attention on the scope of
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the problem and on its various phases, so that the accident~prevention engineers av coal mines may have at hand the eseeantial data needed to cope properly with thp subject. The National Safety Competition is.a small contributor in this respect, but. it is suggestive of what might be undertaken toward establishing cpltplete records of injuries in the coal-mining industry. of the United States.
Now as to certain features of a safaty contest such as ‘the National Safety Competition. First of all, the contest places all mines on an equal basis as regards opportunity to. win the prize, at. least as far as it is physically possible to place all mines on an equal footing. Second, the method of determining the wigner is absolute and free from uncertainties due to differences in human judgments, It is, as far as practicable, placed on an exact mathematical basis, Personal opinion plays no part in arriving at a decision, except in the case of a tie between two or nore companies. Third, the contest utilizes and capitalizes the natural instinct and desire’ of a man to surpass his fellows in any undertak- ing. It is natural that each company should strive to win the prize because that prize denotes success and leadership in the prevention of accidents. Thus the natural human attribute. of ambition is brought into play . in a most useful direction, Fourth, the records which the competing companies furnish to the : Bureau of Mines for purposes of the conte st. constitute a valuable source of information as to the causes of accidents - the mining erro?
The mining. industry nai be creai tea with being among the first major industries in the United States to undertake, in a systematic manner, the. pre- vention: of accidents. It mast now be credited with being among the first to. intensify that effort on a national scale, as it has been doing for the past four years in the National Safety Competition for the Sentinels of Safety trophy. It is to such'organizations as the Coal Mining Institute of American that the coal industry is indébted for being placed in a position of leadership in safety work more than two generations ago and for anata that. aici 4 ona national scale down to the —- day. :
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