IIW History 1990-2015

proven it was stated that C-VIII would keep this situation under review. 1 IIW also held a very successful Colloquium on Health and Safety in 1980 that addressed many of the problems facing the welding industry. Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) was to come under increasing scrutiny in the 1980s with national and local government bodies placing greater emphasis on improving workplace safety through legislation, even to the extent that direct action could be taken in the case of non-compliance, particularly where neglect or omission could be proven. In many cases, with regards to the long-term effects of welding, the jury was still out and most evidence was either circumstantial or anecdotal and it was easy to deflect criticism on other causal effects. C-VIII was quite active in the 1980s with a number of publications, including Potential Health Hazards for Welders Involved in Oxy-Fuel Gas Welding, Heating and Cutting ; Brazing and Soldering ; and Plasma Arc-Cutting and Welding prepared by Mr M. Tinkler (Canada). 2 Tinkler, incidentally, also chaired a working group that produced a series of fume data sheets for the various consumables well before the Globalised Harmonized System of classification and labelling of chemicals (GHS) impacted consumable manufacturers. Dr Grant McMillan (UK), a future Chair of C-VIII also published a paper on the Health of Welders in Naval Dockyards which was of primary interest to him since he was involved in this area through his position as a physician with the Royal Navy’s Institute of Naval Medicine. 3 C-VIII was to become a regular producer of similar documents and papers on health and safety during the 1980s, many of which were published in Welding in the World . An area that did raise initial concern with C-VIII was hardfacing and this resulted in one of IIW’s early publications through the issue of fume information sheets outlining

LINKING PEOPLE, JOINING NATIONS Industrial Development Centre in Göteborg, Sweden, also set up four workplaces for manual arc welding in 1990 whereby a variety of equipment was used to obtain a practical understanding into the improvement of the welder’s work the potential hazards and precautions to be undertaken when using arc surfacing materials, welding nickel alloys or nickel-chromium alloy consumables, and when using consumables for welding and brazing cast-iron. These all had varying levels of toxicity during the various arc welding processes. This was one of the first times that guidance documents such as these for hardfacing were issued through IIW for the use of the welding industry. 4 IIW, through C-VIII, in conjunction with the Lindholmen

Grant McMillan