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Occupational Health and Safety in the British Chemical Industry, 1914-1974

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Occupational Health and Safety in the British Chemical Industry, 1914-1974 University of Strathclyde Department of History The Nypro chemical plant at Flixborough after the disastrous explosion and fire of June 1974. Source: http://aria.ecologie.gouv.fr/ressources/h_flixborough1974_2.jpg Occupational Health and Safety in the British Chemical Industry, 1914-1974 A thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2007 David Walker The copyright of this thesis belongs to the author under the terms of the United Kingdom Copyright Acts as qualified by University of Strathclyde Regulation 3.51. Due acknowledgement must always be made of the use of any material contained in, or derived from, this thesis. ii Acknowledgments The Economic and Social Research Council provided me with financial support to undertake this research and I am extremely grateful to them for this. The ESRC funding also allowed me to travel and interview respondents who agreed to share the memories of their lives with me. Therefore, thank you to Peter Dodds, Richard Fitzpatrick, Hilda Langley, Doug May, Gladys and Derek Rogerson, Brian Watson, and to the others who wished to remain anonymous. The information that they provided me with has enriched this thesis. I would also like to thank Ray Collins, Assistant General Secretary (Administration and Services) of the Transport and General Workers Union who allowed me to access the TGWU archive lodged at the Modern Records Office, Warwick University. I am also grateful for the assistance provided by the archivists at the Modern Records Office at Warwick and to those in the Chester and Cheshire Record Office, the University of Strathclyde, the University of Glasgow, Glasgow Caledonian University and the Mitchell Library archives. I am also indebted to Paul Meara at the Catalyst Museum in Widnes for providing me with photographic images of chemical workers and for providing information relating to these. My thanks are owed to the many colleagues and staff who attend the ‘Cradle to the Grave’ series of seminars held regularly at Glasgow Caledonian University. In this forum many ideas are exchanged and early findings are commented upon and here I must thank Dr Ronnie Johnston and Sue Morrison for helping to make this possible. Researching for this thesis has often been a lonely experience and without the friendship, humour and support provided by my postgraduate colleagues it would have been a social desert. I would therefore also like to thank all those who have joined me in paying homage to Bacchus. My sincere thanks are owed to both my supervisor Professor Arthur McIvor and internal examiner Dr Jim Mills. Whilst the funding gave me the opportunity to write the thesis Arthur and Jim provided me with the guidance, enthusiasm, and friendship that was necessary for me to complete it. Many thanks. iii All the people mentioned above have helped me in various ways to reach this point but I would also like to add to that list my daughter Bechaela and son Russell who along with other family members and close friends have always been encouraging and supportive. However, none of this journey would have been possible at all without the unqualified love, understanding and support given to me by my partner Kath to whom I will always be truly grateful. iv Abstract This thesis probes a neglected area lying at the interface between medical and labour history and is concerned with issues of occupational health and safety in the British chemical industry between the First World War and the passage of the Health and Safety at Work Act of 1974. The research is presented thematically and draws on a wide variety of primary and secondary source material to reveal the causes of ill health, the politics of reform and the role of the key players, such as the government, medical profession, employers and trade unions. As such, it engages critically with hypotheses in this contested field of historical research. The results of open-ended interviews also provides new testimony to show how occupational health issues impacted directly on the workers themselves as well as on the lives of their families. It is argued that the outputs of the chemical industry had social, economic, and political benefits but that the human cost in producing these was often hidden by poor data collection, a lack of investigation and by the fact that the effects of exposure only became evident after latency periods of many years. Some of the obvious and insidious hazards to heath were addressed over time but only so long as the costs of these measures did not adversely impact on the profit making capabilities of the firms involved. Therefore, working within a system that prioritised profit over health many chemical workers continued to be exposed to hazardous and lethal processes. The main response to this by both the employers and the state was to pay compensation. This was the cheaper alternative to prevention and also had the effect of hiding the destitution that arose when a chemical worker no longer had the ability to sell his labour power. v Contents Acknowledgements iii Abstract v Contents vi List of Tables and Illustrations vii Abbreviations ix Introduction 1 Chapter One: Historiography 19 Chapter Two: Assessing the Damage I: Fatigue and Trauma 46 Part One: Hours and Pace of Work 52 Part Two: Accidents 76 Chapter Three: Assessing the Damage II: Poisoning and Occupational Diseases 104 Chapter Four: The State, Factory Inspectors and Medical Knowledge 146 Chapter Five: Trade Unions and Occupational Health 181 Chapter Six: Employers and Occupational Health 234 Chapter Seven: Conclusion 259 Bibliography 272 vi List of Tables and Illustrations Page Illustration 1 Aftermath of explosion in Nypro plant Flixborough i Table 1 Growth of the British chemical industry, 1913-1968 54 Illustration 2 Bleaching powder packers wearing muzzles, c.1917 64 Illustration 3 ICI Castner Kellner bleaching powder packing, Runcorn, 1946/1947 66 Illustration 4 Filling bleaching powder containers, Castner Kellner Works, Runcorn, 1960 67 Table 2 Reported accidents, United Alkali Company Ltd, 1914-1928 88 Table 3 Fatal industrial accidents in the British chemical industry, 1924-1974 90 Table 4 Non-fatal accidents in the British chemical industry, 1959-1974 90 Table 5 Incidence of accidents per thousand employees, 1967-1974 93 Table 6 Inter-Industry variation in accident rates reported under the provisions of the Factories Act at the SIC Order Level for Britain, 1972-74 94 Illustration 5 Packing soda ash, 1953 108 Table 7 Rate (105) of all gassing accidents reported to the Factory Inspectorate, 1938-1944 114 Illustration 6 Chrome ulcer caused by handling sodium bichromate 123 Table 8 Number of reported cases of chrome ulceration in the chromate manufacturing sector, 1928-1938 and 1946 to 1956 125 vii List of Tables and Illustrations (continued) Illustration 7 Intermediates department, Huddersfield dyestuffs works, 1935 131 Table 9 British trade union densities for cotton, coal and chemicals, 1914-1974 196 Illustration 8 The Bridge, by Spike 199 viii Abbreviations ABCM Association of British Chemical Manufacturers AC & AE Association of Chemical and Allied Employers ARC Asbestos Research Council AUEW Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers BDC British Dyestuffs Corporation BMA British Medical Association CBI Confederation of British Industries CIA Chemical Industries Association CIF Chief Inspector of Factories CWU Chemical Workers’ Union HASAWA Health and Safety at Work Act HMWC Health of Munition Workers Committee HSE Health and Safety Executive IARC International Agency for Research on Cancer ICI Imperial Chemical Industries IHES Industrial Heath Education Society IHRB Industrial Health Research Board ILP Independent Labour Party JIC Joint Industrial Council MCA Manufacturing Chemists’ Association MRC Medical Research Council NEDC National Economic and Development Council NHS National Health Service NIOSH National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety NUDCW National Union of Drug and Chemical Workers NUGMW National Union of General and Municipal Workers OPEC Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries PVC Polyvinyl Chloride RMEA Rubber Manufacturing Employers’ Organisation TGWU Transport and General Workers Union ix TLV Threshold Limit Value TNT Trinitrotoluene TUC Trades Union Congress UAC United Alkali Company UCATT Union of Construction and Allied Trades and Technicians USDAW Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers VCM Vinyl Chloride Monomer x Introduction Dad worked at ICI in the caustic plant. At the time we were living out at Rushton, which is about ten mile…twelve mile away from Winnington and he used to cycle there and back. I remember him coming home, well being brought home in the ambulance when he’d had nasty burns through the caustic.1 Between 1914 and 1974 thousands of ‘dads’ risked their lives each day in British chemical works in an effort to earn a living. With the passing of each decade the demand for the goods they produced increased and in 1943 the Chemical Workers Union (CWU) claimed that, ‘without the toil of the chemical process worker, life as it is lived today would be impossible.’2 For example, and by way of attempting to define the industry, in the mid 1970s the Department of Trade and Industry utilised the following Standard Industrial Classification Order for the Annual Census of Production providing an indication of the range of products produced. The classification included sixteen divisions which were as follows; 1) General Chemicals, 2) Inorganic, 3) Organic, 4) Miscellaneous,
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