The People's Health
1943-10 1943 1940s 36 pages Here again the Labour Movement must see a small growth but must see at the same time the need and the opportunity to turn it into a big, luxuriant, adequate thing. Canteens must be comfortable. There must be choice of food. There must not be undue waste of goods brought i...
| Institution: | MCR - The Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick |
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| Language: | English English |
| Published: |
Newcastle-on-Tyne : North-East District Committee, Communist Party
1943
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10796/D762B1D8-1A62-4B17-8742-98B7D26C2D63 http://hdl.handle.net/10796/FE3DA3C8-A798-472B-9975-AC6A93FBF6B0 |
| Summary: | 1943-10
1943
1940s
36 pages
Here again the Labour Movement must see a small growth but must see at the same time the need and the opportunity to turn it into a big, luxuriant, adequate thing. Canteens must be comfortable. There must be choice of food. There must not be undue waste of goods brought in. There must be workers' representatives on the committees that organise them. The prices must be reasonable. In my experience, outside caterrers [caterers] are the worst. In some cases the workers run the canteens, in others the management ; some have joint committees and in some cases the Co-operative Movement supplies them. The supplying of canteens by the Co-operative Movement needs to be extended. Then there has been another extension outside the minimum Factory Act sphere. The Factory Act, as you know, only covers factories and workshops and I am thinking of the Mines Medical Service. Before the war, and for quite a long time into it, in trying to build up interest in this matter of health and safety among industrial workers, I frequently used to ask audiences how many medical inspectors there were to cover our most dangerous industry — mining. Mining, don't forget, is by far and away the most dangerous industry in this country. Three miners are killed every working day, and tens of thousands are injured every year. Yet, well into this war. there was only one Mining Inspector whose job it was to cover every mine in England and Wales. If he did nothing more than go from one fatal accident to another, his time would be more than filled. We have the Mines Medical Service now. Small and inadequate, yet but providing us with possibilities for extension. It is an opportunity which should be seized upon and used and developed to the greatest possible extent. These are some of the better points about health in industry but there remain a number of burning issues in factories and workshops affecting workers' health. The first part of the Inspector's Annual Report for Factories recently published, deals almost entirely with the big increase in the rate of accidents in factories. The figures are particularly alarming for women. They can be explained to some extent because far more women are now doing dangerous work than before the war. But the figures are so much higher than before the war that the Chief Inspector actually says this : "The number of accidents is now so great as to make an appreciable inroad on our war effort." In shipbuilding, although the number of fatal accidents was less last year, the number of non-fatal accidents rose from more tham [than] 15,000 in 1941: to over 19,000 in 1942. Accidents then are an important issue of factory health today and of the whole war effort. REPORTABLE ACCIDENTS IN FACTORIES AND SHIPYARDS. Year. Fatal accidents. Variation on previous year. Non-Fatal accidents. Variation on Previous year 1938 944 — 179,159 — 1939 1104 +17% 192,371 +7% 1940 1372 +24% 230,607 +20% 1941 1646 +20% 269,652 +17% 1942 1363 —17% 313,267 +16% From the Annual Report of H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories for the year 1942. 6
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| Physical Description: | TEXT |