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Got to give it to the Soviets, they did not mess around in showing the consequences of unsafe workplaces.
Of course, like American employers blaming workers for accidents, I have little doubt that the Soviet state could have mandated safeguards on machines that would have prevented a lot of pain and suffering had it had even minimal accountability to the public.
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This reminds me somewhat of a warning label on the stove in an apartment I once rented, a warning reminding the user to bolt the stove to the wall. In the picture, a child is climbing into an open oven. This is causing the stove to tip, and in addition to being trapped or crushed, there’s also a boiling pot on the range above, which the tipping unit is about to cause to fall on the child’s head.
For what it’s worth, I’d never leave a stove unbolted, nor would I now leave a hammer on a scaffold.
Just for graphic completeness, shouldn’t there also be a falling sickle?
That was the companion poster, set in a field. One field hand is reaching back for a long swing of the sickle, unwittingly slashing the throat of the field hand behind him. Only the space is divided up into two planes plus two insets and explanatory arrows, so you can’t tell who’s doing what.
you would think, just for the sake of not having to replace a skilled worker (not as easy as you might think, depending on the industry), employer’s would have a vested financial interest, in making reasonable efforts to make sure they don’t get themselves maimed or killed on the job.
even in low skill jobs, experience tends to be more productive, hence more profitable, than inexperience.
skilled workers cost more money, and workers are just interchangeable cogs anyway so why worry about safety anyway — bad safety saves money
Since I can’t read the Russian, I thought the poster showed two different scaffolds – the one in the upper left is flat, and stuff can fall off. The safe, worker-friendly scaffold in the bottom left has a toe plate that prevents hammers and hooks from falling over and maiming members of the collective. Make sure you use a toe plate, comrades!
I think you’re right, which rather shits on Erik’s snark. You’d think, after the Great Whorehouse Photoshop Incident, he’d be more attentive to visual detail…
Loomis has yet to admit there was a Great Whorehouse Photoshop Incident, so I don’t see why we should expect better from him in the future.
What’s this about? The menu was fake? Well, at least Sasquatch is real.
Antisemite!
I think the general consensus in the comments is that the document is probably fake – appears on the internet in 2010, always in the form of the same image, the attributed provenance is sketchy, some apparently anachronistic linguistic usage.
Loomis has so far basically refused to admit this, saying only that the dispute over its validity is just as fascinating as the document itself!
He’s doing his James Fallows impression
yep, i believe you’re correct on that toe plate thing.
i think you’re correct on “uncle joe” too.
Is it just me, or do all the men in these Soviet posters look like Stalin?
of course, no artist who wanted to live, would know how to draw a male visage other than stalin’s.
I have it from reliable sources that jimmy carter was allowed.
I’m waiting for J. Otto to weigh in on this example of Aesthetic Stalinism
These type of posters both predate and postdate the era of Stalinism, 1928-1953.
Is it just me, or do all the men in these Soviet posters look like Stalin?
And here I thought it said “Drop The Hammer On The Running Dog Bosses!”
My father, who was a worker in the USSR and then here, says that workplace safety there in Soviet times was better than in the US. There were dedicated safety engineers who were punished after accidents.
It depends what time period. During the first five year plan 1928-1932 worker safety in the USSR left a lot to be desired. They were moving a lot of new people into crash industrialization and often having people work at break neck speed. So accidents at places like Magnitogorsk were quite common. Scott’s Beyond the Urals has a decent first hand account of industrial work and accidents at that particular complex. He was an American engineer who went to work at Magnitogorsk in the 1930s. Later things improved considerably.
Definitely. My remark was about the last decades of the Soviet Union: 1970s–1980s.
My father likes to compare two episodes. The first one was in the USSR in 1980s. There was a loud machine in the plant. The workers complained, somebody measured the noise level, and the machine was moved into a sound proof room (I do not know how did it affect the operator; there were some payments for unhealthy work conditions and shortened hours in some officially recognized work situations).
In the US my father was working near a loud machine too. The employer gave everybody headphones, which did not help (the noise goes through the floor and the bones), and people are being deafened.
I lived in the Soviet Union for 28 years. It was not a good place to work and live. Nevertheless there were some things good there. It seems work safety was not too bad there.
My wife says that the ice cream was a lot better during Soviet times. Education and health care were better than they are today in Kyrgyzstan as well. But, my wife was born in the 1970s long after the 1930s and 40s.
I went to a driving school there. The way the instructor described consequences of drunk driving (and accidents in general), it fucking made my blood curdle. That was long, long time ago, but I still remember his story about a drunk guy jumping out of a moving car, and getting skinned by the pavement. Brrrrr. God, make me forget.
Another story was about a guy whose carotid artery (or whatever the main artery in the neck is called in English) was cut, in an accident. The instructor said: if you let it bleed, you’ll be dead in 30 seconds. But the fellow from the story was a clever one: he blocked it with his finger, walked to a nearby hospital, and in a half hour he was like new. Maybe it’s not the stories themselves, but naturalistic descriptions and depictions, like on that poster.
Was it here that there was a compilation of Russian Dashcam shorts? The safe driving did not apparently stick (if it ever applied in the first place. Horror stories do not necessarily make better drivers.).
Yes, I saw those videos. Well, I guess since it’s a big problem they’re paying more attention. You never know, there could’ve been even more casualties without those horror stories.
Here in capitalist America, we make driver’s ed fun!:
That blood seems to be falling awfully quickly. Either that or he’s balancing the hammer on his nose.
Here’s a decent collection. Don’t walk on fish!
What’s the caption say? “Comrade Stalin hates when you steal his kills – be careful”?
Since we’re aware of all internet traditions…
The instructor in that video seems to be a twin to Canadian PM Stephen Harper.
Reminds me of the signs in the Chinese subway:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaiban/6139483755/
(I could only find a black and white picture; it’s better in color).
In about the 1980s, West Germany had a series of stamps promoting industrial safety by showing what might happen if you were unsafe. There was a guy falling off a ladder, another guy putting his hand on a circular saw, and a couple more which I have forgotten. I thought to myself at the time that the US needed some cool stamps like those.
they had videos too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxir60uZkU8
New Zealand’s Accident Compensation Corporation ran a great series of safety ads in a similar vein a few years ago – Ladders aren’t your friend: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaJHLPwhnF0
Kids, don’t leave your toys on the floor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u51OxZF1ltI
Unfortunately that particular example is a comedy short and not an actual safety film, though Wikipedia tells me safety instructors in Germany may show it “to lighten up the mood.”
PS–my husband used ladders occasionally on the job and the whole shop had to watch ladder safety movies occasionally. He says there’s nothing funnier than a ladder safety movie. Somebody does something stupid and then falls down. Ha ha ha. The stupid things people did in the movies were exactly the same stuff people occasionally did in real life
They could probably do just as well with certain Three Stooges shorts.
Nonsense! As professional hairpiece model Rand Paul explained, Sometimes accidents just happen. Furthermore, regulations aren’t necessary because if a particular workplace becomes known as a place of death and dismemberment, people can choose not to work there.
Remember: Workplace accidents don’t kill people. People do.
The only way to stop horrific workplace accidents is good workplace accidents.
If we outlaw unsafe working practices, only outlaws will have unsafe work practices.