The following appeared in a memo from a vice president of Quiot Manufacturing."During the past year, Quiot Manufacturing had 30 percent more on-the-job accidents than at the nearby Panoply Industries plant, where the work shifts are one hour shorter than

The author of the argument – a vice president of manufacturing enterprise – suggests decreasing working hours per shift for the employees in order to increase productivity presumably compromised by on-the-job accidents. Though the intentions sound commendable, the argument rests on the plethora of flawed assumptions and remains open to contestation among reasonable people. To begin with, the arguer implies that on-the job incidents are caused by fatigue and lack of sleep predominantly. He extrapolates this assumption not only at workers of his plant but at workers of the neighboring plant which he uses as a benchmark. In fact, true reason of on-the-job accidents may root at multitude of various factors starting from safety norms adopted at the place of work, how accurately those norms are followed and stretching to consistency of deleterious factors and promptness of administration’s response to these factors. The argument would benefit a lot in event the author presents results of thorought examination of root causes of registered accidents to prove that true trigger is fatigue rather than other possible reasons. On top of tiredness as a cause of accident, one would want to know whether sleep deprivation persists among workers on regular basis. Though fatigue might have caused majority of accidents at work, that does not mean that other workers who rested well before shift need that extra hour to avoid incidents. It is vital to know that worker who experienced accidents planned and exercised their right for appropriate rest rather than spent all the night time in booze. In this case other measure than reducing working hours are required. For example, to conduct alertness test before the shift. Otherwise, workers who do rest well and want to earn commensurately to their abilities will unfairly suffer because of few weeds in the flock and, very possibly, will start looking for a new working place that will pay adequately. Finally, vice president’s uncritical interpretation of numbers is fraught with fallacy and sets wrong benchmark. First, the fact, that neighboring plant has 30% less accidents means nothing meaningful when taken out of context. If number of employees at the nearby plant is twice less than that number of the plant in question, then percent of incident per 100 workers is higher at Panoply Industries plant and is more suitable coefficient for comparison. Second, we don’t know what Panoply Industries qualify as an accident. May be, if a worker was hit but did not bleed or bruise immediately, that does not admit as on-the-job accident at one plant but does at the other. Third, we want to know that all qualified accidents are registered willfully at both plants. For example, Panoply Industries might have an incentive for absence of on-the-job accidents and thus, employees are reluctant at registration of benign from their point of view incidents. As a result, even rightfully chosen coefficients might be distorted. In conclusion, vice president’s intention to improve life of his workers is laudable but to take proposed measures based on suggested information is precipitous. Only in case we know that fatigue is a true and justifiable reason of accidents and scrupulous examination of possible benchmark is conducted, the proposal can be taken into consideration.