== Edison Bowers, “Ís It Safe to Work?  A Study of Industrial Accidents” ==

== Edison Bowers, “Ís It Safe to Work?  A Study of Industrial Accidents” ==

The statistics that Bowers presents at the beginning of his essay are alarming.  “On the basis of 20,000 fatalities per year, [the country] is deprived of 380,000 man-years of labor . . . The less serious injuries account for probably 3,000,000 weeks of lost labor annually.  All types of injuries taken together cause an annual loss of time of more than 280,000,000 working days” (102).  With this much at stake, it is amazing that the employers did not implement safer working conditions.  Would the loss of profit from creating safety precautions really outweigh the loss of production from work-related fatalities and injuries? –Samantha W.

 

'''The statistics that Bowers presents at the beginning of his essay are alarming.  “On the basis of 20,000 fatalities per year, [the country] is deprived of 380,000 man-years of labor . . . The less serious injuries account for probably 3,000,000 weeks of lost labor annually.  All types of injuries taken together cause an annual loss of time of more than 280,000,000 working days” (102).  With this much at stake, it is amazing that the employers did not implement safer working conditions.  Would the loss of profit from creating safety precautions really outweigh the loss of production from work-related fatalities and injuries? –Samantha W.'''

I also found the statistics staggering. I have always heard about working conditions or the dangerous of working in a factory from the past, but did not consider that it was still so dangerous. I guess I assumed that with time there would be more precautions in place to help protect the workers in these environments, even though I know that they could not fix the problem fully. I think that the employers have made working conditions safer, but it appears that a lot of the accidents are due to stupidity, which is hard to prevent. However, it did say that employers were hesistant at spending money to implement safer conditions. It would appear that it would be cheaper to have safer working conditions than to lose money from injuries or deaths. --Meagan B.

I also found the statistics staggering. I have always heard about working conditions or the dangerous of working in a factory from the past, but did not consider that it was still so dangerous. I guess I assumed that with time there would be more precautions in place to help protect the workers in these environments, even though I know that they could not fix the problem fully. I think that the employers have made working conditions safer, but it appears that a lot of the accidents are due to stupidity, which is hard to prevent. However, it did say that employers were hesistant at spending money to implement safer conditions. It would appear that it would be cheaper to have safer working conditions than to lose money from injuries or deaths. --Meagan B.