GASTONIA
NORTH CAROLINA
BOWLING GREEN
KENTUCKY
BENNEHSVILLE
SOUTH CAROLINA
MARCH
1972
Tir^$lone
Bennetts ville
SfSW
Six Years Of Safety
•• Six years doing business without a time-loss in
jury. At the Bennettsville Firestone Textiles plant,
that represents some 1,570,000 manhours at the job
of producing tire fabric.
This signal achievement in
injury control was marked
in February.
“We made that day a historic
one,” said factory manager Ed
win Fuller. “Of course, we kept
right on working safely, but
when refreshment breaks came
during the day, the goodies were
‘on the house’.”
The Firestone Tire & Rubber
Company sent a certificate com
memorating the safety mile
stone. It was one of several
honors in recent months. Upon
the safe-operating record at
tained at the five-year mark,
the plant was recognized by
awards from the South Carolina
Occupational Safety Council,
the SC Department of Labor,
the parent Firestone company,
and Liberty Mutual Insurance.
Discovery/
a c c o m ■
plishment
for these
treasur e-
hu n te Ts
photo-
graphed al
a W e s t
Second
Avenue
search of a
Springtime
past.
NOW. WITH the six-year rec
ord “on the books”, the plant is
well along toward the second
million manhours of injury-free
operation. It is sharing a goal
with Firestone Textiles Com
pany’s Bowling Green, Ky.,
plant which is also in the “home
stretch” of a two million safe-
manhours record.
All these safe hours at Ben
nettsville — how many years
would they represent, figuring,
say, on a one-shift, five-day-a-
week basis? Some Gastonia
Methods & Standards people
took to the calculator. Its figur
ing revealed:
That would “put us back in
Time” roughly 755 years, or
near 1217 A.D.
• More on page 2
Basket
“Something hidden—Go and
find it!”
The “something”: Hundreds
of colorfully decorated eggs at
the annual hunt for employee
children and other youngsters
of the Firestone plant commun
ity. Saturday morning, April L
The hunt is traditionally the
day before Easter Sunday.
This springtime event at the
Firestone plant is a part of the
City of Gastonia Recreation De
partment egghunts staged on
Easter weekend for children and
elderly people at several loca
tions.
The Firestone hunt, a chil
dren’s “version”, is programmed
by Industrial Relations manager
Ralph Johnson and others of his
department.
Mrs. Ida Byers, Recreation
Center hostess, supervises the
dyeing and decorating of “trea
sure to be tucked away and dis
covered.” Most eggs are “face
value” but a few ones are
premiums.
MARLBORO
Scene
South Carolina’s state tree,
the palmetto, shares this
look, photographed in Feb
ruary, of Marlboro County’s
historic Court House clock
tower and cupola. The Ben
nettsville landmark building
faces Broad Street.
Bennettsville, founded 1819, has been county seat since
1820. Residents like to speak of their town as having grace,
charm and serenity, friendliness and neighborliness ... a
proud past and a growing future.
Marlboro people, long used to a rich agricultural heritage,
have brought in diversification through manufacturing and
other industries. A leading one of these in Firestone Tex
tiles, producer of quality tire fabrics since 1943. It con
tributes to the city’s diversification which maintains a bal
ance between agriculture and industry.
OSHA: Always Room For Improvement
Throughout most years of its history, the Firestone
Company has had a safety and occupational-health
program at work. Safety performance has been—and
continues—outstanding, with many an achievement
recorded and noted by safety awards from local to
national level.
As in all human endea
vors, there’s always room for
improvement. Safety, for ex
ample. You have to keep
everlastingly at it.
Comes now “Instruction from
the Top”—the Federal Govern
ment.
Since April 28, 1971, the Oc
cupational Safety and Health
Act has been in effect nation
wide, and by now most people
in industry are acquainted with
it.
This Federal legislation, under
consideration for years, was
signed into law by the President
in December, 1970. Its bedrock
purpose:
Make as safe as iK>ssible
the environmental conditions
under which people work in
occupational employment....
OSHA sets Federal require
ments and standards to help the
employer and the person on the
job toward doing away with
causes of occupational illnesses,
injuries and fatalities.
The new law makes it com
pulsory for every employer to
keep his place of emplojrment
“free from hazards that are like
ly to cause illness, serious harm,
or death” to people at work.
This legislation—what’s
ferent about it?
dif-
• It provides a Federal over
view for working conditions;
gives broad authority to the U.S.
Department of Labor and the
Department of Health, Educa
tion and Welfare (HEW).
• It sets up and operates a
Federal agency to enforce the
law (The Occupational Safety
and Health Review Commission),
and fixes uniform safety and
health standards for those who
work in business and industry
engaged in interstate commerce.
(Before OSHA, standards varied
from state to state.)
• The Act imposes penalties
for violation of these standards,
and provides for investigation of
conditions, plus research on haz
ards and harmful materials.
Who’s Affected By OSHA?
More on
Page 2
Any employer whose business affects commerce—from
the shoeshine stand that employs one worker and uses pol
ish shipped from another state, to the country's largest cor
poration. OSHA covers some 4.5 million employers and 60
million workers.