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Improving Workplace Safety in the Ontario Manufacturing Industry, 1914–1939

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 April 2011

Javier Silvestre
Javier Silvestre
Affiliation:
Javier Silvestre is associate professor of economic history at the University of Zaragoza
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Abstract

The safety of workers and the costs to employers and the economy as a whole became a serious problem in industrializing nations. Workplace safety in the Ontario manufacturing industry deteriorated at the end of the nineteenth century. In response, the province legislated to regulate safety standards and factory inspection. However, this strategy failed to reduce accident rates. As in the United States, it was the enactment of workers' compensation legislation that generated the economic incentives for Ontario's employers to invest in safety. Yet in contrast to the United States, where safety was predominantly organized inside firms, employers in Ontario developed a comprehensive institutional framework to organize a range of safety actions.

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Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 84 , Issue 3 , Autumn 2010 , pp. 527 - 550
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2010

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22 Non-fatal accidents are usually more affected by changes in inspection and reporting efforts, as well as “moral hazard” problems. In fact, the non-fatal accident rate (not shown here) tripled after the Workmen's Compensation Act entered the statute book in 1914. Another more reliable source on non-fatal accidents is utilized below.

23 Annual Report of the Inspectors of Factories (hereafter ARIF), 1899, 6Google Scholar ; ARIF 1901, 6; ARIF 1903, 5 and 27; ARIF 1904, 13–14; ARIF 1905, 31; ARIF 1910, 6. Michael Piva and Eric Tucker minimize the impact of improvements in reporting on accidents recorded from 1900 onwards; Piva, Michael J., “The Workmen's Compensation Movement in Ontario,” Ontario History 67 (Mar. 1975): 39–56, esp. 39–41, andGoogle ScholarTucker, Eric, Administering Danger in the Workplace: The Law and Politics of Occupational Health and Safety Regulation in Ontario, 1850–1914 (Toronto, 1990), 181.Google Scholar See also ARIF 1917, 63.

24 Output data in this section are based on census data for 1890, 1900, and 1910, and include rearrangements by Drummond et al., Progress without Planning, 353–59 and 393, as well as previous adjustments by Gordon Bertram. Output has been deflated using the general wholesale index for fully and chiefly manufactured materials included in Leacy, Frank H. and Urquhart, Malcolm C., eds., Historical Statistics of Canada (Toronto, 1983), K–44Google Scholar.

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38 The annual compound rates of growth in output per worker in manufacturing for 1918–1922 and 1929–1933 were -2.4 and -12.3 respectively. Statistics on output and gainful workers are from the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, The Manufacturing Industries of Canada, various years (Ottawa)Google Scholar ; and , Drummond et al. , Progress without Planning, 362–64.Google Scholar For de-fl ation, see note 24.

39 Data refer to compensated cases in “Schedule I,” which is explained below. Schedule I also includes lumbering, mining, and construction, but the source reports rates as a whole. I have estimated annual fatality rates between 1911 and 1939 for these three industries based on information published in the Labour Gazette (hereafter LG). Interestingly, fatality rates in lumbering, where the employers' safety association was created in 1915, displayed a downward trend in the 1920s and the 1930s. Fatality rates in mining and construction, with no safety associations until 1929 and 1930 respectively, present an upward trend.

40 I follow the methods proposed by Aldrich, Safety First. According to available data, first, I have estimated the average fatality rate in 1941 if the industry mix in manufacturing had been the same as in 1921. I have also estimated hours of work for skilled and unskilled workers (between 1911 and 1939, and between 1901 and 1939, respectively). Finally, I have gathered data on the number of electric power and light installations, which are utilized as a proxy for the extent of electrifi cation, as well as information on industrial medicine. Estimates, statistical analyses and sources, not shown here, are available upon request.

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46 Similar exclusions prevailed in other countries at this time, as reported by Gordon, “Industrial Injuries.”

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63 Compensation in many U.S. states, meanwhile, was limited to between 150 and 400 weeks. Waiting periods for temporary disabilities were usually longer in U.S. states than in Ontario. See LG (Aug. 1920): 1012–20Google Scholar ; LG (Apr. 1930): 399Google Scholar ; , Hookstadt, “Comparison of Canadian Workmen's Compensation,” 173Google Scholar ; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Comparison of Workmen's Compensation, 7–12Google Scholar ; Workmen's Compensation Board, The Workmen's Compensation Act with Amendments to 1932 (Toronto 1932), 8Google Scholar ; Dawson, Miles M., “Ontario Procedure in Settlement of Workmen's Compensation Claims,” Monthly Labor Review 42 (Jan. 1936): 1–9, esp. 3-4; andGoogle Scholar, Fishback and , Kantor, A Prelude, 208–17Google Scholar.

64 Reproduced in LG (Aug. 1922): 844.Google Scholar See also Logan, Harold A., Trade Unions in Canada: Their Development and Functioning (Toronto, 1948), 402Google Scholar ; , Piva, “The Workmen's Compensation,” 55Google Scholar ; , Campbell, “The Balance Wheel,” 311–14Google Scholar ; and LG (Oct. 1918): 888Google Scholar.

65 , Campbell, “The Balance Wheel,” 320–21Google Scholar ; Workmen's Compensation Board, Ontario, Annual Report, 1918 (hereafter ARWCB), 63Google Scholar ; ARWCB 1927, 8–9; LG (June 1928): [599–600Google Scholar.

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72 I have estimated an equation, available upon request, relating the natural logarithm of the rate of assessment on a constant and a time trend.

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79 Joint Safety Convention, Discussion to the Solution of the Accident Problem, 15Google Scholar ; LG (June 1925): 591Google Scholar ; IAPA, Report of the Safety Convention and Annual General Meeting (hereafter RSCAGM) 1927,Google Scholar reproduced in the LG (June 1927): 640.Google Scholar See also Metal Trades SA, RAGM 1921, 8, and RAGM 1927, 19.

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82 LG (June 1927): 639.Google Scholar See also ARWCB 1926, reproduced in the LG (June 1927): 636; and ARWCB 1927, 27. An additional problem was the increase in medical costs. The Associations recognized that accident prevention was the priority rather than accident follow-up. See Metal Trades SA, RAGM 1921, 5; Textile Manufacturers SA, RAGM 1928, 4; and Printing Trades SA, RAGM 1933, 5.

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85 ARIF 1922, 83–88; Joint Safety Convention, Ontario's Accident Prevention Problem, 3–4 and 13Google Scholar ; IAPA, RSCAGM 1931, 24–26; LG (Mar. 1929): 298 and 1301; , Campbell, “The Balance Wheel,” 322Google Scholar ; , McCallum, “Corporate Welfarism,” 66Google Scholar ; , Naylor, The New Democracy, 167Google Scholar.

86 ILO, Factory Inspection, 258Google Scholar ; LG (Oct. 1933): 975.Google Scholar The new inspectorate supplemented rather than substituted for provincial inspection. Provincial inspectors remained in charge of the enforcement of the Factories' Act, which was expanded with the enactment of the Factory, Shop and Office Building Act in 1913.

87 , Morley, “Accident Prevention,” 287.Google Scholar Information on the number of inspectors and inspections, not available annually, is taken from: ARWCB, 1920–1928; IAPA, RSCAGM 1923, 11; LG (June 1925): 582Google Scholar ; LG (May 1940): 413Google Scholar ; and , Morley, “Accident Prevention,” 287–88Google Scholar.

88 ILO, Factory Inspection, 253 and 258.Google Scholar See also Morley, “Accident Prevention”; and IAPA, RSCAGM 1931, 29–30.

89 For 1928, see Ceramics and Stone SA, RAGM 1928, 5; Leather, Rubber and Tanners SA, RAGM 1928, 5; Metal Trades SA, RAGM, 9; Packers SA, RAGM 1928, 7; Printing Trades SA, RAGM 1928, 6; and Textile Manufacturers SA, RAGM 1928, 5.

90 LG (June 1928): 600Google Scholar ; LG (Oct. 1918): 888Google Scholar.

91 IAPA, RSCAGM 1923, 11; , Morley, “Accident Prevention,” 287Google Scholar ; LG (Apr. 1926): 362.Google Scholar See also Furniture Manufacturers SA, RAGM 1923, 5; Implement and Vehicle Manufacturers SA, RGAM 1923, 6; Metal Trades SA, RAGM 1924, 7; Woodworkers SA, RAGM 1924, 6; Ceramics and Stone SA, RAGM 1928, 5; Printing Trades SA, RAGM 1928, 5–6; and Textile Manufacturers SA, RAGM 1928, 4.

92 For the Algoma Steel Corporation, see Metal Trades SA, RAGM 1933, 2.

93 LG (Nov. 1918): 1028Google Scholar ; LG (Dec. 1925): 1190Google Scholar.

94 Metal Trades SA, RAGM 1921, 21; Food and Tobacco SA, RAGM 1926, 9–10; Joint Safety Convention, The Solution of the Accident Problem, 5–6Google Scholar ; Metal Trades SA, RAGM 1927, 12; Printing Trades SA, RAGM 1933, 2; LG (May 1921): 650Google Scholar ; LG (June 1927): 639Google Scholar ; LG (June 1928): 610Google Scholar ; LG (Apr. 1934): 323Google Scholar.

95 Canadian Congress Journal 4 (June 1925), 25Google Scholar ; Canadian Congress Journal 6 (Sept. 1927): 15–16Google Scholar ; Trades and Labour Congress of Canada, Summary of the Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Convention, reproduced in LG (Oct. 1926): 964Google Scholar ; , Dawson, “Ontario Procedure,” 9Google Scholar ; , Logan, Trade Unions, 503Google Scholar.

96 I have not found evidence of any strong opposition by workers to the introduction of new safety procedures. We should not, however, dismiss the existence of antagonism. As shown by Aldrich, Safety First, with regard to the U.S. case, initial resistance was common because new safety procedures were often imposed from above. See also Esbester, Michael, “Organizing Work: Company Magazines and the Discipline of Safety,” Management and Organizational History 3 (Aug. 2008): 217–37; andCrossRefGoogle ScholarTaksa, Lucy, “Intended or Unintended Consequences? A Critical Reappraisal of the Safety First Movement and its Non-Union Safety Committees,” Economic and Industrial Democracy 30 (Feb. 2009): 9–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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98 , McCallum, “Corporate Welfarism,” 73.Google Scholar

99 , Tucker, “The Determination of Occupational Health and Safety,” 285.Google Scholar

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101 Department of Labour of Canada, Workmen's Compensation in Canada, 3Google Scholar ; , Gordon, “Industrial Injuries,” 208Google Scholar.