Abstract

Safety Last: III. Why the Safety Movement Fails

This article presents the author's views on the issue of industrial workers safety movements. In industry, the American Association for Labor Legislation, studying the records of twenty-two States, found an average increase in accidents for 1923 of 30 per cent over the previous year. Half the States showed increases of 25 per cent or more. Nearly a quarter of them showed increases of more than 40 per cent. Several showed increases of 50 per cent. Not one State showed a decrease in accidents. The accidents of 1925 have apparently exceeded those of 1924, as certainly the accidents of 1923 greatly exceeded those of 1922. The trend in the iron and steel industry has been gradually and practically continuously downward.