The South Works of the Illinois Steel Company, a U.S. Steel subsidiary, created the safety committee as a main program of the organized effort in accident prevention in 1908. The primary objective of this essay is to describe and document that the company's safety activities on the shop floor level resulted in the labor management reform, and that these activities were led by the chief safety inspectors, more commonly known as “safety men, ” who insisted that the “human factor” was a contributing element in accident occurrence.
The safety men faced the same problems that employment managers would have to treat, and shortly realized that no safety devices without improving the employment system seemed to be available to diminish industrial accident rates. In January 1913, the company set up the new managerial position of the Supervisor of Labor and Safety, which integrated both functions of the safety department and the employment department. Arthur H. Young was given charge of this supervisory work. At the same time, the safety men had expanded the scope of the safety committees, so that they organized “combined” committees, a new experiment for improving the relationship between foremen and immigrant workers.
From their experience the safety men realized that the safety problem was one of labor management, that no progress in safety could be given without considering the human relationship of employers and employees on the shop floor, and that immigrant workmen were not “backward, crude and ignorant” and could be efficient actors in safety work. Safety men's recognition of this was the most important factor of the successful management reform. In later years, A. H. Young concluded that “one of the by-products of the safety movement” had been the growth of personnel management.

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