sir. Mr. FLOOD. How long has this Bureau been in business? Mr. BORTZ. This Bureau was founded by Secretary Perkins in 1934, Mr. FLOOD. Don't you think it is about time somebody got around to what you are telling me? Supply for the record what you are doing on this subject. If you are doing anything, I don't know about it. I think you should be doing a great deal. Just supply the information. (The information requested follows:) The Federal Safety Council is composed of representatives from each Federal agency and its secretariat is a part of the Bureau of Labor Standards. There are about 100 field chapters of the Council made up of agency representatives in different sections of the country. A technical committee of the Council has been working on Federal motor vehicle safety problems within the limits of its charter since its organization in 1950. It has played a prominent part in every major effort to improve motor vehicle safety as it affects the Federal worker. The present Civil Service Commission driver examiner test, the current motor vehicle accident report forms, the promotion of use of seat belts in Government vehicles, are illustrative of the work of the Council and its staff. The Council is presently developing a motor vehicle accident prevention program which will be made available to all agencies for adoption. It is the result of a survey made by the Council, of existing programs and is designed to correct program weaknesses and assist all agencies in the development of improved safety programs. This program will cover the important phases of a motor vehicle program including licensing, testing, training, point systems, preventive maintenance, etc. Officials and technicians of the Council participated in the recent development of safety requirements for federally purchased motor vehicles under Public Law 88-515 as part of the GSA Interagency Committee. In addition, the Department, through the representation of the Secretary of Labor, participates in the work of the Interdepartmental Highway Safety Board and the President's Committee for Highway Safety. TEACHING SAFE DRIVING TO MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES Mr. FLOOD. You are doing certain things for the Federal employees. Now, should you or do you reach out to try to prevail upon the State governments to do the same thing for the millions of State employees and municipalities for the millions of municipal employees? Mr. FOGARTY. Yes; they do. Here is the man who is in charge of it right over here. Why don't you come up here, Mr. Gidel. You are running this program. I think you have done a good job over the years. Mr. FLOOD. Do you mean you are actually trying to tell State and municipal people about their employees being advised how to drive safely? Mr. GIDEL. This is a report you might look at at your leisure. Mr. GIDEL. This covers the four areas in which we are concerned. The maritime, then we work with the State labor departments in training their State factory inspectors and providing advice on the development of State codes. Mr. FLOOD. I am talking about driving and not factory inspectors. Mr. GIDEL. Driving is a minor area. We are interested primarily in industrial Mr. FLOOD. That is not what I am talking about, Mister. I am talking about driving. Mr. GIDEL. We do have some training courses in driver training but it is very limited, sir. Mr. FLOOD. Why? Because you think it is only a fraction of your general headache, is that it? It is a good answer, if it is. Mr. GIDEL. We have never been involved in the traffic and the driver area except with respect to the numbers of persons in a plant. Mr. FLOOD. That is not what I am talking about. My question is very simple. Your boss here says they have a program vis-a-vis Federal employees to preach the gospel into their ears about safe driving. I am not talking about all the other things you preach to. What I want to know is, do you reach out into the States and the municipal governments and try to give them the same gospel, to teach their employees about safe driving, not only to and from work, but safe driving, period? I know all the other things you do and I am sure they are good. Mr. GIDEL. We have not gotten very far in that area; no, sir. Mr. FLOOD. Should you? Mr. GIDEL. We try to include it where we can within our resources, but we do not have resources to go very far. Mr. FOGARTY. The Public Health Service has developed a driving simulator that is in operation now, developed by private industry, but paid for by the Public Health Service, and they think, with these two simulators demonstrating safe driving practices in various States, they can do much to prevent accidents in the future. Mr. GIDEL. National Safety Council has worked with them and with us in developing a driver improvement training program that has just started during the past year and we have not been involved very much. Mr. FLOOD. In view of the President's statement just this week, and in view of the legislation introduced this week and that going to be introduced next week, I think he who works for the Government can take a cue that the boss is interested. Mr. BORTZ. Traffic safety is not one of our assignments. Mr. FLOOD. This I didn't know. Mr. BORTZ. I wanted to clarify the record on that. Except insofar as it is tied in occupationally to a job. Now, we do and have worked, as Mr. Gidel indicates, with States and State employee groups, construction and highway maintenance, and so forth. RISE IN RATE OF INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENTS Mr. FLOOD. You say accidents to workers are on the increase nationally in direct ratio to the increase in employment. Because of the boom in the economy, more people are working. The more people work, the more get hurt. That is what it is, isn't it? Mr. BORTZ. There are two measures, Mr. Congressman. One is the total aggregate number of injuries or accidents. As you say, this is increasing. There is also a rate measurement which relates to the number of injuries per 1 million man-hours worked, so if the volume of employment rises and the injuries rise, you would have the same rate. On the other hand, if injuries rise faster than employment, you would have an increase in rate. Mr. FLOOD. You are not going to tell me now with the increase in automation and the sophisticated operation of machines of that typeintelligent machines of that type in the electronic area-that people who are running computers are having accidents, are you? Mr. BORTZ. Accidents do occur there, but the unfortunate fact, sir, is that we have a rising trend in industrial accidents in terms of the rate, and the figures for 1965 probably will be higher than they have been in the last 10 years. Mr. FLOOD. All you have to hope is that when machines started working for machines and those machines start working for other machines, that you don't get saddled with damage and injury to machines. Then you will really be in trouble. Mr. BORTZ. There are also studies-not definitive-in terms of the monotony and the psychological and emotional factors of looking at a board of flashing lights. Mr. Congressman, on page 14 of this report is a chart which relates just to the increase in employment and the rate. INJURIES IN SHIPYARDS Mr. FLOOD. You tell us the injuries in shipyards are going away up, yet shipbuilding is away down. You can hear the merchant marine people speaking to this. How can there be an increase in the shipyards when there is no construction in the shipyards? Mr. BORTZ. This was the picture up until quite recently, as you know. This past year Mr. FLOOD. The reconditioning of mothballed ships. Mr. BORTZ. Pulling out ships from mothballs and there have been new contracts let for ship construction. It has taken a turn up. Mr. FLOOD. They are dangerous to work on too. Mr. BORTZ. There are special hazards in demothballing vessels. PROGRAMS FOR THE SMALL TOWN Mr. FLOOD. This is one of my perpetual wails here, being a smalltown boy. I am getting fed up about the urban problem. I am getting so sick of hearing about nothing but the urban problem. For 15 or 18 years around here I got just as sick of hearing about the agricultural problem and the rural problem. Then they went from the agricultural problem across the heartland of America against what has been the backbone of the country for 150 years, the small towns and the small cities up to 100,000. Now everybody is gnashing their teeth and pulling their hair and running for the hills about the urban problem. The big metropolitan urban problem. I get the impression that everything you are doing about safety and the educational programs is trapped in the same rut. You are not going to do anything for my hometown of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., at under 100,000, because you haven't got the people; you haven't got the money; you haven't got the time. You have to follow the leader in the urban effort: is that it? Mr. BORTZ. No, sir; it is not. Let me just say by way of reference that I, too, am a smalltown Pennsylvanian. Mr. FLOOD. Where are you from? Mr. BORTZ. In Montgomery County. Mr. FLOOD. You are suburban. You are big city. You have silk stockings on. Mr. BORTZ. Your coal trucks used to roll through our town. Mr. FLOOD. There are darn few of them rolling now. You fellows are buying oil. MOBILE TRAILER PROJECT Mr. BORTZ. But very seriously, we recognize that everything is not in the large cities; everything is not on the farms; that there are many small factories in small communities where the safety instruction and safety training is very, very meager. We have looked into, for example, the matter of having mobile trailers to go out and help educate the people. Mr. FLOOD. Now you are making sense. You looked into it. What did you find? Anything? Or did it scare you to death and make you leave it alone? Mr. BORTZ. No, sir. The committee, I believe, was furnished a tabulation by the Department which sort of has the ask and bid figures on it with reference to what proposals were made by the different bureaus and, sir, we had a proposal for a mobile safety training program. Mr. FLOOD. You had a proposal where? Where is it? Mr. BORTZ. It was not approved. Mr. FLOOD. By the Bureau of the Budget? Mr. BORTZ. If my memory serves me correctly-I better check it. I don't want to indict the wrong people. sir. Mr. FLOOD. I love to indict the Bureau just on general principles. Mr. BORTZ. A proposal was transmitted to the Bureau of the Budget, Mr. FLOOD. Sure. Sure. They know as much about this problem as your grandmother, or mine. Mr. GIDEL. As an example, we made a tour through several States and conducted training courses for supervisory employees for small companies in these towns. Mr. FLOOD. I am glad you did it, but that is just a hit and a lick. I come from a district where the average age of people is higher than the national average. I have lost 120,000 people in 20 years. It is because of the coal industry. My young people have moved out. We have a distressed economic area. Thank God we are over the worst of it; but yesterday the Department told me "Well, we can't do anything about this new program to help your older people because we only have enough money and enough people for the urban areas." Then I get into the Neighborhood Youth Corps business. "Well, we only have enough money to help the people in the urban areas.' Everybody in the Department of Labor from Wirtz down has given me this answer during the last 4 days: "Well, we haven't got the money because we have to do something about the problems in the big urban areas." I don't like this. Mr. GIDEL. The successful reaction to this particular program in Illinois led us to our proposal for mobile trailers. Mr. FLOOD. And the Bureau of the Budget, who wouldn't know a mobile trailer if they saw one, said "No." That is all, Mr. Chairman. REPORT ON SAFETY ENGINEERING AND PROGRAM SERVICES FOR FISCAL YEAR 1965 Mr. BORTZ. Mr. Chairman, with your permission, I wonder if we could submit for the record the report that we customarily furnish the committee, "Safety Engineering and Program Services for Fiscal Year 1965." Mr. FOGARTY. We will include it in the record. (The report referred to follows:) 59-316-66-pt. 1-36 |