14 :. SAFETY AND PRODUCTION
also. reflect in part a failure to make the adjustments made necessary
by new conditions.
Such a study could undoubtedly have been much more suc-
cessfully made during a period when business activity was standing
still rather than increasing. It was, as has already been explained,
only the seriousness of the situation and the need for coping with it
that led to making the study at the present time.
Before closing, it should be pointed out that it is to be anticipated
that the synthesis of results that is to be had from a thoroughly satis-
factory solution of organization problems will go further than safety
and production. It should include morale as well. We shall certainly
be prepared to find that those plants that have secured both increased
safety and an increased efficiency of production will also show an in-
creased morale. For these results are not casual and independent, but
have come about definitely as a result of good organization, and it is
inconceivable that an organization that is able to produce both of these
results will not also produce morale as well.
The situation can be illustrated by what is known to have taken
place in connection with the early development of the safety move-
ment. The old so-called welfare movement of twenty years ago had
a brief and ineffectual career. It passed away because it was not an
intrinsic part of industry and because it did not represent any genuine
mutuality of interests. The safety movement originated at about the
same time. Safety had a genuine and direct interest for both em-
ployer and employee; for the employer, if for no other reason, because
accidents under the compensation law formed an element of his cost,
and for the employee because it was his own life and limbs that were
at stake.
In order to get results in the safety field, labor and management had
to work together. When once working together, however, they be-
came caught by the human quality of the problem and learned to
respect and understand each other. In a multitude of cases the safety
committees came to be used also for other purposes. In other cases and
because of the fact that these committees had been successful, other
similar committees were formed to deal with other parts of the prob-
lem of working relations. The safety movement, by furnishing a
field for a practical working cooperation on the basis of a genuine
mutuality of interests, has been perhaps the most important factor in
ushering in the era of better industrial relations which exists today.
