This short documentary examines the impact of the machine that best represents the automation of office work: the video display terminal. The program includes music, sound effects, and interviews with office workers and female trade unionists in San Francisco, as well as experts in the field of occupational safety and health. Health topics include stress, radiation, muscular-skeletal strain, and eye problems from regular work at video display terminals. Heard in this program are Janet Bertinuson, associate director at the Labor Occupational Health Program at the University of California in Berkeley; Barbara Potkin, a member of the Office and Professional Employees Union; Lloyd Jackson, the electronic data processing liaison at Blue Shield, where Potkin works; Dr. Milton Zaret, associate clinical professor of ophthalmology at New York University; Helen Palter, president of the San Francisco Oakland Newspaper Guild; John Rogers, public relations director at Blue Shield. Written and produced by Mara Liasson. Engineered by James Bond and Kathy Jacob.
Previously cataloged as VDT's: health and safety in the automated office. This program is listed in the Folio as Occupational Health Hazards. Broadcasted several times in 1981 and 1982.
This recording has been digitally preserved as part of Pacifica's American Women Making History and Culture: 1963-1982 grant preservation project, and is available for research and reference . Please contact the archives via telephone: 818-506-1077 or email: americanwomen at pacificaradioarchives dot org for information on how to obtain a copy of this program. Thank you.
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