Interim report : industrial efficiency and fatigue / Health of Munition Workers Committee.

  • Great Britain. Health of Munition Workers Committee.
Date:
1917
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Interim report : industrial efficiency and fatigue / Health of Munition Workers Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/134 (page 4)
    some other women medical practitioners, and also of various Inspectors of Govern- ment Departments, who assisted in the collection of information in regard to the factory and social environment of the workers examined. The Committee are desirous of taking this opportunity of expressing their appreciation of the services rendered by their investigators, and of thanking the Government Departments con- cerned for their courtesy in granting permission for the employment of their officers. The Committee are also under obligation to munition firms and their stafis for the readiness with which they have afforded the investigators every opportunity for pursuing their inquiries. 3. The abnormal conditions at present existing in munition works are favourable to investigation, in that they afford unusual opportunities of studying the effect of abnormal hours, of night work, and of other variations in the hours and conditions of employment. There has, too, been a general endeavour to relax trades union re- strictions. Further, a large proportion of munition work consists in the more or less rapid repetition of particular processes, and thus readily lends itself to the calcula- tion of rates of output. The circumstances, on the other hand, have been disadvan- tageous in that there have necessarily been frequent changes in the number of workers employed, in the conditions of employment and in the processes used, which have made it difficult to obtain data in regard to large numbers of workers or for long periods of time. The high pressure under which the management have generally been working has limited the number of firms who have found it practicable to keep records sufficiently accurate and complete to permit of trustworthy data being obtained from them. The Committee have sought to avoid any interference with the regular workings of the factories, and it has not yet been possible to arrange for control experiments; the statistical data examined have been those extracted from the wage sheets and other records kept by firms for their own purposes. By this method, however, the advantage has been gained that in no case were the workers aware that the records of their work were likely to be subjected to any unusual scrutiny. The conditions, in fact; were normal and not artificial; -the inquiries were in the nature of “‘ field ’’ and not laboratory experiments, and the data gain in value accordingly. ; : 4. The investigations of the Committee are still in progress, and it is hoped that they may be extended rather than restricted in the future. The information which has already been collected appears to the Committee to be of sufficient importance to merit publication, and it is presented in the present volume, which on grounds of economy has been kept within narrow limits. There has necessarily been some variation in the method of treatment. In some instances the data collected by a single investigator have been sufficiently complete to warrant the separate publica- tion of the investigator’s own report. In other instances the full relevance of the data collected by one investigator is only apparent when they are compared and cor- related with data collected by other investigators; in such casés memoranda have been prepared, collating the data in regard to a particular subject and suggesting the conclusions which may fairly be drawn. The studies included in the present volume fall naturally into two parts—Part I, Industrial and Statistical Studies; Part II, Medical Studies. The data presented in the two parts differ in certain essential par- ticulars. In the first part they are based on a study of ascertained facts; in the second part they are based upon opinions formed as the result of medical examina- tions and upon information supplied by the workers examined. It may be convenient shortly to summarise the principal matters to which reference is made. Part J.—INDUSTRIAL AND STATISTICAL STUDIES. 5. The Committee have thought it convenient to preface this section of studies by incorporating their Memorandum No. 7 on ‘“‘ Industrial Fatigue and its Causes,”’ since in that Memorandum are discussed at length the causes of fatigue and the manner in which they should be measured and described. They have also included Dr. Vernon’s study on ‘‘ Output in relation to Hours of Work ”’ (already published separately as Memorandum No. 12), in which he sets out various data collected by him to show the influence on output of varying hours of employment, and makes suggestions as to what may be expected to be the best hours of employment for men and women workers, having regard to the varying strain involved in their work. The three other studies are now published for the first time. ~