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WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION IN U.S.        351

Total for temporary total disability.......2,324,829
Total for permanent total and partial disability.................................  128,589
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      GRAND TOTAL..........................2,453,418

Assuming that there are 30,000,000 working people engaged in production and exchange the average worker's chance of escaping is 11 out of 12.  To put it another way, one worker out of every 12 meets with an injury in the course of a single year. This is a phenomenon which vitally concerns the welfare of the working class since its sole means of livelihood depends on its ability to sell its labor power to the capitalists. Moreover, the constant intensification of exploitation and use of complex machinery opens up new avenues of danger and exposes the workers to ever increasing risks.

Workmen's Compensation and Insurance Laws

The laws as a whole are very explicit in what they deny and purposely obscure what they grant. Hence it is necessary to point out at the outset that the reader should not be misled by the positive provisions designated for the various injuries and death.  The statutes provide so many exceptions as to exclude millions, if not a majority of the workers from the paltry benefits allowed.  The statutes divide themselves mostly into two parts----positive and negative.  The positive part designates the money allowances and the periods over which they run.  The second or negative part consists of the "buts" and "exceptions." We shall treat the positive first.

Fatal Cases

Every year an average of 20,000 workers are offered up as sacrifices to capitalist production.  The question arises, if such a vast number of fatalities is essential to modern industry.  To this question the Society of Engineers, a bourgeois organization, has given a firm answer.  NO!  The Society has repeatedly declared that the installation of safety devices and proper inspection facilities will eliminate partially the vast majority of all industrial accidents. Of course unforseen accidents will always occur, but it is nothing less than criminal that in the mining industry alone 2,000 coal and metal diggers should each year offer up their lives because the management in its eagerness for more profits has failed to remove the