IIW History 1990-2015

Gromiec, revealed that approximately 160 000 people were involved in welding in that country, including 70-80 000 full-time welders. A joint meeting with the ECONWELD Project Technical Committee in Gliwice also revealed even more staggering statistics – there were over 730 000 full-time welders and 5.5 million welding-related jobs in Europe. Welding had a high impact on the health of these workers leading to a high percentage of sick leave estimated at 160 hrs/year for each welder. 38 Brown also presented a brief update on manganese litigation in the USA, commenting that in March 2008, welding electrode manufacturers lost their case in Mississippi but won one case in Louisiana. The plaintiff in Mississippi was awarded USD 2.9 million

Ken Brown

damages for manganism against three welding rod manufacturers in the Mississippi District Court, by Judge Kathleen O’Malley. In the case of the Louisiana claims the judge took only one hour to dismiss those brought on by four welders, based on the arguments by the manufacturers that they suffered Parkinson’s disease and not manganism. The report covering these cases said that ‘After consecutive trial victories by plaintiffs, including the one in Mississippi, counsel for the welding rod manufacturers can take a deep breath after a big win in Louisiana’. 39 Industry was by now recognising the increasing importance of welders’ exposure to a number of environmental factors which potentially contributed to chronic health problems among welders. Several shipyards in Europe were participating in a programme following a meeting of SC-SHIP in Odense, Denmark, in September 2003. Boekholt and Kadefors were both instrumental in the support of this exercise and in reporting back to C-VIII on the programme which had as one of its principal aims to keep qualified professional welders on the job up to a normal retirement age. It was now becoming clear that industry faced increasing difficulties in replacing skilled welders and in attracting young people to start a career in welding. This had industry lamenting ‘where have all the welders gone?’ 40 Although resolution of health problems in welding and shipbuilding, in particular, were relatively slow at first, there were encouraging signs that creative engineering and research into ergonomics were providing solutions for the minimisation, or prevention, of health issues. Ergonomics was to become a key discipline in cutting out the heavy manual labour involved in welding and consequently the musculoskeletal disorders that were the major cause of early retirement for welders. It ideally fitted into the work of the Multinational European Project, ECONWELD and the many other national occupational health projects around the world. IIW, through C-VIII members, was able to promote and highlight these

HEALTH SAFETY & THE ENVIRONMENT