jim@sri-unix (11/05/82)
On Tuesday this week, the Canadian government released a report recommending
that office workers be allowed to work a maximum of 5 hours a day in front
of video display terminals (VDT's) because of numerous reports of irregular
pregnencies, stress related diseases, etc. that seem to be cropping up in
people who work for long periods of time in front of VDT's without a break.
In addition, it was recommended that pregnant women be reassigned to non-VDT
work during pregnancy, due to reports of miscarriages and birth defects
associated with office workers who worked with VDT's during pregnancy.
The Norwegian government has also done some research on the subject, and
found that 1) some VDT's cause a skin rash due to electrostatic acceleration
of dust particles into the face and 2) those VDT operators who do boring
and repetitive work are more subject to stress related diseases than
those who do creative work.
I would be interested in reactions and experiences of people on the net
with respect to this question. My opinion is that there is probably something
to the pregnancy problems question, and limiting workers to 5 hours a day
would not only help reduce health problems but would also open up more job
opportunities for people to fill in the remaining 3 hours. From the employer's
viewpoint, it would probably cost something, but that would be counterbalanced
by less health problems, fewer absence days, and (if it ever gets that far)
fewer lawsuits, etc. On stress related diseases, from experience, I think
that it depends very much on the type of system one is using. UNIX, for
example, tends to create less stress related problems because the user
interface is better (at least for me), while working with other systems
is generally more stressful.
What do you think?