抄録
Recently the finance of the Japanese National Railways (JNR) is in the red because of its unreasonable management and insufficient subsidy from the government. The authority of JNR has developed a drastic reduction of workers by force as one of measures for solving the finance problems, causing many serious problems on working condition among the workers of JNR.
There are many research projects and study reports about working conditions of drivers, while there are very few reports concerning other workers. The author studied on the working condi-tions of conductors on board of cabooses who have their responsibility for many kinds of job like adjustment, examining train, verifying instrument, management after accidents on and off train and so on.
The results are as follows :
1. They had many physical, mental and social complaints resulting from evening and night work, which had disrupted the daily living pattern such as disturbance in eating and sleeping habits.
2. High prevalence of gastro-intestinal disorders were observed in their past histories though they were relatively young.
3. About forty percent of them reported that they had been affected with abdominal pains on train, and more than eighty five percent of their injuries resulted from receiving shocks on train. These injuries were mainly burns, scratches and contusions caused by shocks due to abrupt stopping of the train or acute change in the speed.
4. They pointed out that many of the present working conditions needed improvements, especially with respect to shift systems, construction of cabooses, and safety and health measures.
