BUREAU OF INSPECTION
The Bureau of Inspection is the Department’s
agency for enforcement of laws and regulations per-
-aining to safety and to health. In its application
of industrial safety it has kept pace with the modern
educational trend until today no function of the
Bureau is so important as its service as a highly
trained consulting safety organization. In that
;apacity its expert services are available to every
industrial group and to every individual concern,
and to every individual worker.
The Work of the Bureau of Inspection is performed through an
organization which includes a field force of one hundred inspectors
and twenty section chiefs and supervisors acting under a Bureau di-
rector. General factory inspectors constitute the largest single body.
Their activities are directed by supervisors from nine divisional offices
so located that the supervising office of any division is as accessible as
possible to all parts of its division. Elevator, boiler,
building, and quarry inspections are made by es-
pecially trained field men operating under section
shiefs, who are located in the central office of the Bu-
reau in Harrisburg. The general field force includes
female inspectors located where their services are of
most advantage for the application of those laws
and regulations applying especially to female work-
ers. There is a section especially devoted to the in-
terests of women and minors in industry.
Reduction of accidents and maintenance of health
are the important services for industry which the
Bureau of Inspection is charged to perform. The
providing of mechanical safeguards and of such physical conditions as
will advance sanitation are given to the Bureau to enforce through law.
The same applies to special restrictions set about the employment of
women and of minors, Inspectors are trained to note departures from
these requirements and have them corrected. Ample police power is
given to inspectors, but the bulk of industrial accidents being due only
indirectly or not at all to causes which can be corrected mechanically,
the Bureau of Inspection must go far beyond an exercise of police
powers to realize its goal.
Today the State factory inspector, while continuing the enforce-
ment of mechanical safeguarding, devotes even more attention to en-
listing the cooperation of industry in safety work through the forma-
tion of plant safety committees, or through the assignment of a dis-
tinet responsibility for safety to the persons in supervisory positions
in factories of whatever size. It is the aim of the Bureau of Inspection
that every factory inspector shall be a competent safety engineer, pre-
pared by his training to apply the sum of all safety knowledge ac-
cumulated in the Department to whatever problems he encounters.
When desired by industry, shop meetings are addressed by representa-
tives of the Bureau as a further means of imparting safety education.
Bverv industrial accident of any consequence is investigated by
T. J. Gould
Assistant Director.
