The Chemical World This Week
FTC HITS FOAMED PLASTICS FOR NONBURNING CLAIMS The Federal Trade Commission has • Discontinue the use of ordered 25 companies to stop ad- misleading advertising claims. vertising their cellular (or foamed) • Contact past purchasers of the plastics products as being "non- materials (mainly contractors) as burning" or "self-extinguishing." far back as 1968 to alert them to The agency says the products really the possible fire hazards associated are combustible. with the products. Further, for the first time in the • Place warning notices in trade history of FTC rulings, the agency journals and general circulation has ordered the manufacturers and magazines (Time, Better Homes their trade association—Society of and Garden, and others). the Plastics Industry—to set up, The consent orders stem from an fund, and carry out a $5 million re- FTC complaint that the companies search program on the flammability have been marketing the plastics as of the products and on ways to being "nonburning' or "self-extinminimize fire hazards involved with guishing" when indeed they are combustible. Once ignited, the plastics burn intensely. Further, FTC does not feel that tests promulgated by the American Society for Testing and Materials for determining the degree of the flammability hazard "accurately represent the performance of the products under actual fire conditions." Hence the agency is investigating the standard-setting role of ASTM and other certifying agencies. However, FTC makes clear that the consent orders in no way constitute an admission that the companies have violated the law. Reaction to the consent orders is mild. A sampling: Allied Chemical and Dow Chemical say that the FTC ruling will have little or no impact on their present mode of operation; Upjohn is "pleased" with the decision; Union Carbide and Du Pont say that the only efHarding: improved product safety fect will be the changes in brochure their use, primarily in construction terminology. SPI's Harding believes the impact will go far beyond the and furniture. Under the tentative consent or- named products, in that there will ders, the research program will be be a "thorough understanding of all managed by a nine-member com- aspects of cellular plastic combustimittee—five technical experts bility, improved product safety, named by FTC and four chosen by and techniques of application and companies taking part in the pro- installation of cellular plastics, and gram. Funding for the effort will be better test methods." shared among manufacturers on a Aside from the consent orders, pro rata basis, dependent on total FTC also proposes a trade regulavolume of plastics sales. SPI presi- tion rule for plastics construction dent Ralph L. Harding says this materials. Principal provisions mandated program will comple- would ban the description of burnment existing SPI efforts in fire re- ing characteristics unless they research. flect performance under actual fire In addition to the research pro- conditions and would require warngram, the manufacturers are direct- ing tags on the products and warned to: ings in all promotional matter. 4
C&EN August 5, 1974
These actions, according to J. Thomas Rousch, head of FTC's bureau of consumer protection, "will fully accomplish FTC's objectives in this complaint . . . now, not two or three years from now after lengthy litigation and occurrence of some tragedies."
Jobs for chemists: all signs point up The employment situation for those in the chemical profession looks stronger today than it has in several years. It is still not as strong as it was a decade ago. But overall chemical industry employment continues to move up steadily. And employment advertising for chemists is being run at an increasingly high rate. Also, new data indicate that unemployment among chemical engineers is below the 1% level and government figures show that overall unemployment among professional and technical personnel is holding at about the 2% mark. Employment in the chemicals and allied products industry gained 26,000 between June 1973 and June 1974 from 1,030,000 to 1,056,000. Half of the increase has been in the ranks of the industry's white-collar workers, whose number has risen from 431,000 to 444,000. The industry's total employment peaked in 1969 at about 1,065,000, then fell steadily to bottom out at about 995,000 in 1972. Job advertising in C&EN this July averaged six pages per issue, the highest it has been since 1969. Last July it averaged only about three and a half pages. And during the worst of the job crunch, in 1971, it was at little more than one page per issue. The latest economic survey of the membership of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers indicates an unemployment rate of 0.9%, down from 1.4% in 1973 and from the high point of 3.7% in July 1971. And Department of Labor statistics show that unemployment among professional and technical personnel has been hovering at very close to a 2% seasonally adjusted rate for the past 12 months. In June this year it was at 1.9%, well down from the 1971 peak of more than 3%.
