Page 2 | CHEM-TEXTS | Vol. 3 No. 7
FROM THE FACTORY MANAGER
DEAR FELLOW EMPLOYEE:
This year we have been pushing the slogan “SAFETY IS MY RESPONSIBILITY.” Frankly, it seems to me that our success to date is in developing the attitude that “everybody is responsible for my safety.” It’s about time that we face up to our own responsibility for safety.
I’ve heard too much of, “you didn’t fix this” or, “why should I do it that way, so and so doesn’t.” Or, the old favorite, “I’ve been doing this for twenty years and nothing has happened to me.” These are, at best, just excuses.
We have to face up to the basic fact that each man is primarily responsible for his own safety. Management’s responsibility extends to providing the proper tools and equipment, protective devices and giving safe operating procedures and instructions.
Beyond this point, supervision can’t make a man safe if he doesn’t act safely. This is particularly true in our plant where each man works with a great deal of responsibility for his own work.
Recently, I read some criticism concerning companies where protective equipment wasn’t furnished to employees.
Let’s take a look at our plant. UNIROYAL provides hard hats, safety glasses, goggles, safety shoes, gloves and other protective equipment, and yet too many employees take the attitude of “let’s see if we can make them force us to wear this stuff.” What kind of a game is this for men to be playing?
Don’t you think it’s about time for you to quit playing Russian Roulette with your SAFETY? I sincerely hope you will think this over and agree for your family’s sake.
Best regards,
John
Little known but important is the job of sorting tubes and removing brass valves in Reclaim production. Left to right are Hilda Moura, Linda Oliveira, Amelia Francisco. In rear is Ascencao Fonseca.
Frank Giedraitis, left, and Ray Mulcahy of the Synthetic storehouse, service the mechanical department with valves, fittings, sheet metal and necessary supplies.
Responsibility, Reliability
Hand in hand with job responsibility is job reliability knowing that an employee will perform his job conscientiously. For example, suppose the Control Laboratory did not evaluate the quality of a product properly before it was shipped to a customer. Shipping it would affect the profit of the product since it will be returned by the customer and transportation and rework costs must be absorbed by the Company. To some degree every department in the plant is affected by a chain-like interdepartmental reaction: Purchasing must supply new packages; Production must rework and repackage the material; Materials Handling must unload the returned product and store it in the warehouse; Billing must issue a credit; Sales must satisfy the customer’s complaint and possibly lose a long standing one; and Distribution/Scheduling must reschedule production and arrange for warehousing the material.
Profits Lost
It’s evident that every employee’s job is important in the profitable operation of the plant.
If each person performs it well he will be contributing not only to his own, but to every other employee’s job security and to the plant’s successful operation.
Defective instruments affect product quality. Martin Cherkus, Mechanical Dept. repairs critical level band in Reclaim as Larry Rinaldi watches.
Left to right Ray Chevrier, Bob Vadnais, and Pete LaCharity, of the Synthetic plant finishing line, package Naugapol rubber neatly for prompt delivery to a customer.
Responsible Position
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operating line, resulting in lost production, lost sales, lost profits and a lost customer who required the product delivered to his plant on time to meet his production schedule.
One employee’s absence has a chain-like effect on not only his own job, but the jobs of other people in his departments. In one production department, absenteeism averaged 150 days a month, seriously jeopardizing the production of the department and the jobs of the employees in it …. along with the jobs of people in other areas.
SAFETY IS MY RESPONSIBILITY
Testing the quality of OXAF before it is shipped to customer is Edith Evans, left, and Margaret Sweeney of the Quality Control Lab. In background is Janet Lennan.
Floors are cleaned, waxed and buffed every night by the Janitors to keep offices clean and neat. Don Fuller, left, group leader, advises Joao De Campos as he cleans floor in Bldg. 84.