AEC’s Safety Record

The nation’s atomic energy program was operated during 1951 with an average of 3.67 employees injured for each million man‐hours worked, a 21.2 percent improvement over 1950, according to the Atomic Energy Commission. The rate for all U.S. industry for 1950, the latest available from the National Safety Council, was 9.30. Operations contractors in the atomic energy program during 1951 sustained employee‐injuries at a rate of 2.65 per million man‐hours, 19.9 percent below their 1950 rate. The National Safety Council 1950 rate for the chemical industry, the nearest comparable, was 5.82. It is notable that the General Electric Company, operating the Hanford Production Plant, headed a list of larger industrial contractors by cutting its injury rates 76 percent under its rates for 1950. General Electric production employees of Hanford, located at Richland, Washington, suffered only one injury for every five and one‐third million man‐hours of work in 1951.

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