Bob the Builder

by New Worker correspondent

In the construction industry there are at present many battles over safety issues, including many concerning the rights and wrongs of actually working at this time. At the site of a new gas power station near Scunthorpe workers successfully demanded to be sent home because they were being forced to use fingerprint machines to clock-in to the site, which would spread coronavirus. Further north, construction unions Unite and GMB are demanding that Balfour Beatty furlough workers at the TeesREP renewable energy site in Teesport and other sites.

Many employers are trying to get around the rules. The bosses of Balfour Beatty insist that redundancy consultations for more than 60 workers at the site will continue during the lockdown and that the staff are not eligible to receive 80 per cent of their wages under the government’s job retention scheme. They justify this by claiming that redundancy consultations were planned before COVID-19 shut down the country and that registering the workers would go against government eligibility guidance for the scheme.

This excuse was described as “paper thin” by Unite the union, who point to the fact that other major construction contractors, such as Bilfinger and Altrad, have furloughed workers whose redundancy consultations were scheduled to take place during the lockdown.

Unite’s national officer for construction, Ian Woodland, said: “Balfour Beatty must reverse its decision not to furlough workers at the TeesREP site, as well as those at the Crossrail site in London and elsewhere. At best Balfour Beatty’s actions are misdirected and heartless, at worst they point to a cynical financial calculation that the firm will not have to pay out advance wages for these workers while the government’s financial support comes through.”

GMB national officer Steve Kemp added: “Balfour Beatty needs to urgently re-think their decision – it flies in the face of any kind of fairness. Other construction companies have taken a totally different view on how to proceed in very similar circumstances.”

House builders Persimmon, Barratt and Taylor Wimpey have stopped work, but Redrow and Cairn Construction have not. Last week two Tory ministers were confused about the issue, with Health Secretary Matt Hancock saying any worker who could not do their job from home should go to work to “keep the country running”. But Michael Gove said that only construction workers doing jobs “critical to the economy” should go in, adding that builders should not be going into people’s homes. The next day Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick said that work in people’s homes was allowed if it was done safely.

As for the two main trade bodies, the National Federation of Builders, which represents small-to-medium sized contractors, said builders could work on sites if they followed safety guidelines; but the Federation of Master Builders said only emergency work should be carried out.

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith agreed that builders should only attend to emergency requirements. Andy Burnham, Labour Mayor of Greater Manchester, deplored the fact that the decision to allow non-essential work appeared to have been made for “economic reasons”, saying: “When you're in the middle of a global pandemic, health reasons alone really should be guiding all decision-making.”

Construction workers are “angry and unprotected” at having to go work and others report being under pressure from employers to go in.

Many are officially self-employed and fear loss of income if their employers shut down.

The industry is notorious for sub-contracting and fake self-employment. Thus, Taylor Wimpey said it was looking at how to support around 2,000 directly employed staff but washed its hands of its “self-employed” freelancers on its sites. The boss Pete Redfern said on the BBC’s World at One that: “They are generally not actually operating for us, they are operating for a sub-contractor” so he was nobly going to “support our subcontractors by paying them on time or in advance”.

Trade journal Construction News has also said the industry has taken up the cause. It deplored the activities of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) being suspended. Construction News noted that: “While the HSE is understandably right to protect its inspectors and their families from the virus, the lack of oversight may mean that basic site safety regulations are no longer being adequately adhered to.”

Construction News also noted that in the industry it was near-impossible to stick to social distancing rules, citing the example that in order to comply with distancing regulations workers would have to lift heavier loads than they should tackle alone.

A director of one sub-contractor pointed out: “The measures that are put in place are then not compatible with the existing health and safety best practice for work on-site.

“We’re a risky industry, we [suffer] quite a lot of incidents and accidents. And now, when you’ve got limited or reduced supervision, the amount of accidents has the potential to go up. So we’re just going to be a bigger draw on already scant resources in the NHS.”

The journal also warns that the absence of HSE inspectors on-site could mean that there is little incentive for firms to ensure that workers make the right safety decisions or to raise the alarm when unsafe conditions occur.

To make matters worse, there is a global shortage of face masks. Moldex, one of the largest suppliers of PPE [personal protective equipment] has stopped taking orders in Britain. It will prioritise first responders, the health sector and critical services when more stock becomes available.

Level three filtering face-piece (FFP 3) masks essential for dust protection are being sold on eBay for around £20 each, before the crisis they were only £1 – roughly 20 times the pre-crisis cost.

In January there was dramatic increase in demand, at time when Asian manufacturers stopped exporting. To make matters worse, the Germans banned exports of certain FFP masks within the European Union. Moldex reports that the number of sometimes desperate enquiries from doctors, hospitals and aid organisations is still increasing. It’s hoped masks from Asia will begin to arrive on the market soon and help to relieve the situation.

Last Friday Unite called on the Government to appoint a minister concerned exclusively with the delivery of adequate PPE to protect workers from COVID-19, specifically mentioning the lack of supplies for the NHS and bus drivers. It claims that a lack of central government co-ordination is hampering efforts to deliver safety equipment on the scale and with the urgency needed.

Steve Turner, Unite’s assistant general secretary for manufacturing, pointed out that: “Household name businesses like JLR and the Royal Mint have released stock, provided and produced raw materials, designed, shaped, cut and assembled everything from face masks to visors, googles and medical gowns to gloves and hand sanitiser to deep cleansing materials.” Some gin distilleries have already been converted to deal with the last item.

“Like the generals of the First World War directing the troops from the safety of horseback far from the front, we now see a failure to lead from the front from today’s generals in Cabinet. We encounter competing interests, factional and departmental tensions and disjointed messages when what is desperately needed right now, not tomorrow or next week, is for government to act as one in the national interest.”