An ergonomic assessment of the airline baggage handler

23■■■■The annual cost of those injuriesWhether baggage handlers in their organization were required to lift baggage andcargo exceeding 32kg (701b) weight? 32Kg is a pre-existing notional industrylimit on passenger baggage weight.What back injury control measures had been applied in their companies? Inparticular, information was sought on use of back support belts, back caretraining, use of ground equipment, use of narrow body aircraft in-plane baggagestacking systems and details of any attempts at building redesign to reduce theinstance of baggage handler manual handling injuries.What measure did they believe would be necessary in future to reduce theinstance of back injuries to baggage handlers?In the attempt to lower the subjectiveness of the magnitude of the back injuryproblems in the questionnaire Dell had instructed the safety professionals to list theirresponses pertaining to the years, 1992 to 1994.3.2.2 Results of Safety Professional's SurveyThe average hours worked per person per week remained consistent from 1992 to 1994with 38.3 hours. The number of baggage handlers that worked in the same time periodfluctuated however from 19,430 in 1992 to 30,257 in 1993 and back down to 29099 in1994. The cost of back injury for the aforementioned airlines rose from 1992 to 1993from $17,639,857 to $23,697,170 and declined to 21,710,953 in 1994 as their workforcedecline.