Profiles in safety and health: fabricated structural metal

Monthly Labor Review, Dec, 1991 by Martin E. Personick, Elyce A. Biddle, Amy Lettman

"Whether rain or shine

She's a part of the assembly

line. She's making history

working for victory."

-Rosie the Riveter, song by

R. Evans and J. Loeb, 1942

Rosie the riveter, symbol of the industrial resolve of American women during world War II, would encounter a spate of technological changes on today's factory floors. Her riveting hammer, for instance, once the primary method of joining metal parts, has all but disappeared, supplanted by the welding torch and welding machine. This article examines work activities and their associated safety issues in fabricated structural metal, an industry that exists in a factory setting where workers cut, shape, and join metal parts for use primarily in industrial and commercial buildings and, to a lesser extent, in bridges, ship sections, transmission towers, and offshore drilling platforms.

During the latter part of the 1980's, some 2,500 structural metal fabricators, employing nearly 80,000 workers, competed in a $9 billion market for their products.(2) Seven major centers for fabricated structural metal manufacturing the States of Alabama, California, Illinois, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia accounted for two-fifths of total employment in this industry.(1) Small establishments (fewer than 20 workers) continued to be numerically important in fabricating structural metal, constituting a clear majority of the industry's total plants; they were, however, but a fraction (about one eighth) of its total employment.

Through the years, fabricated structural metal manufacturers have experienced a high incidence of workplace accidents and injuries.(5) The industry's 1989 injury and illness rate of 24.4 per 100 full-time workers, for example, was nearly double that for all manufacturing (13.1) and almost triple that for private industry as a whole (8.6). That year, half the injury and illness cases in fabricated structural metal were serious enough to require workers to take time off from their jobs or to be assigned light duties or shortened work schedules.(6)

Disabling (lost worktime) injuries and illnesses in fabricated structural metal took a variety of forms, largely depending on the job and its attendant risks. Of special note were serious eye problems (scratches and flash bums, for example) incurred by many hand welders and cutters and severe back and leg sprains sustained by structural metal workers fitting together and otherwise maneuvering heavy shapes.(1) The following sections examine the injury and illness record of fabricated structural metal in more detail and relate that record to certain industry characteristics, such as staffing and work requirements, that appear to be linked to safety and health on the job.

Safety and health measures

Fabricated structural metal plants remain among the most hazardous workplaces. At 24.4 per 100 full-time workers, the 1989 injury and illness rate for these plants ranked 12th highest among rates reported for some 370 individual manufacturing industries.' On a positive note, fabricated metal plants appear to be somewhat safer in 1989 than in 1980, when their injury and illness rate of 27.6 ranked fifth highest in manufacturing.

Besides the overall injury and illness rate, there are other measures that the Bureau of Labor Statistics uses to gauge the severity of workplace incidents. (See appendix for definitions of such measures.) In 1989, these measures recorded mixed results for the fabricated structural metal industry. While the industry's incidence rates for lost workday cases and for lost workdays were relatively high, its average number of days lost per case was lower than that for the private sector and for all manufacturing. (See table 1.) Put another way, although workers fabricating structural metal face a comparatively high risk of sustaining a serious injury or illness, they return to their regular jobs after such disabilities more quickly, on average, than do workers in most other industries.

Separate State data are useful in spotting variations in injury and illness experience within an industry.(9) For example, in the fabricated structural metal industry, the 1989 injury and illness rate for total recordable cases in California (29.3) was more than double Louisiana's rate (13.2). Overall rates, however, were not necessarily indicative of the severity of accidents in this industry. Recuperation time, for instance, averaged 25 days per lost workday case in Louisiana, 10 workdays more than in California. (See table 1.)

Injury and illness characteristics

The Bureau's annual survey reports on injury and illness rates by industry, but it does not provide information about the characteristics of those workplace incidents. Such information is available, however, at least to some extent, from another Bureau program-the Supplementary Data System-based on the State workers' compensation systems. Unlike the annual survey, the Supplementary Data System does not produce nationwide estimates and lacks uniform treatment among States of what is a compensable workplace injury or illness."' Nonetheless, despite these and several other analytical and statistical limitations, the Supplementary Data System does help in spotting general patterns (or the absence thereof) in the characteristics of work-related injuries and illnesses involving lost worktime.