Garment Industry

Garment Industry. The October Revolution fundamentally transformed the garment industry in our country. In place of the former private artisanal workshops, a large state-owned industry has been created, which now encompasses more than 130 garment factories. The former types of tailors, sitting cross-legged on the floor, have disappeared without a trace; along with them disappeared the pre-revolutionary system of work, when one person mostly performed the entire process of cutting, sewing, and pressing. The former artisan tailors were replaced by factory workers, working in large premises equipped with machinery and with extensive division of labor, where each worker performs only one small part of the work. On a number of factories, the transfer of semi-finished goods from worker to worker has been mechanized by the installation of a moving conveyor belt, and accordingly old garment factories have been reconstructed; newly built enterprises have been organized. Soviet garment factories, along with conventional sewing machines, now widely use various special machines (buttonhole, button, lace-making). For pressing and ironing, special electric irons, gas and steam presses, etc., are used. Sanitary features of garment production. The air temperature in cutting and pressing departments of various factories fluctuates at times within wide limits: in the morning during cold weather it is low (12-13°C), during the day it rises to 25°C, and in the presence of irons and steam presses - to 28-30°C and higher, during the second shift the temperature is even higher. Humidity is usually elevated in pressing departments, where relative humidity can reach 70-75%. In premises where gas irons and presses are used, the air usually contains a certain amount of CO. Furthermore, cotton, wool and other fiber dust enters the air. Vibrations of the floor, work table and chair on which the worker sits in cutting shops are the result of the combined action of both the transmissions themselves and the periodic action of sewing machines, with vertical movements being greater than horizontal ones. In shops with cement floors, vibrations are significantly less compared to wooden ones. Vibrations of 0.03-0.06 sec predominate. The work table is subjected to the greatest vibrations, but significant shocks are also experienced by the chairs on which the machine operators sit. - From pressure by the hand on the iron handle, calluses form on the palm of workers' hands, and often the typical occupational disease of pressers, so-called 'trigger finger', develops. Pressers and cutters constantly work standing, the main difficult processes are accompanied by forced bending of the body. In the work of seamstresses, there is constant visual strain, which with imperfect lighting, and especially when working during the day with artificial light, cannot but affect the condition of vision. Measures to improve working conditions must first be of general sanitary nature: 1) decongestion of workshops and bringing the air volume per person to the standards of the NKT (20 m³); 2) regulation of the meteorological factor (possible avoidance of overheating of workshops, elimination of sharp temperature differences between workshops, staircases and dressing rooms) through supply-exhaust ventilation and rational use of opening transoms and windows during lunch and other breaks; 3) fighting dustiness of work premises by using vacuum cleaners and thorough wet cleaning; 4) to combat industrial injuries, instruction of newly hired workers on safety techniques, finger guards, presser feet, protection of motors, switches, good insulation of steam and electrical wiring, proper condition of work tables and cutting boards (splinters), etc.; 5) to improve the air environment - replacement of gas and charcoal irons with electric ones; 6) introduction of rational general and additional local lighting; 7) to counteract the harmful effects of forced sitting position and increase the body's resistance of workers at work, a specially developed set of physical exercises in the form of so-called 'physical minutes'. Lit.: Katsnel'son S, Health and morbidity of adolescent seamstresses, Gig. truda, 1925, № 2; Mikutskii, Kalistov et al., Garment production, Materials on improving and rationalizing the work of Moscow seamstresses, M., 1930; Olunina V., Tailoring trade, M., 1911; Rozenbaum N., Sanitary characteristics of detailed professions in garment production, M., 1921; ibid., Hygiene of labor in garment production, M., 1927; Epstein, Die Krankheiten der Schneider (Hndb. der Arbeiterkrankheiten, hrsg. v. Weyl, Jena, 1908); Price, Industrie de l'habillement (Hygiene du travail, Encyclopedie, v. II, Geneve, 1932).

A. Mikutskii. N. Rozenbaum.