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20 August 1998 Edition

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Workers in struggle: What price the life of a worker?

Fifteen building workers died in 1997, 15 others have died already in 1998. This week another five builders narrowly escaped death when the four tonne roof they were working on collapsed.

The accident on a £25 million prison extension in Dublin is just one of the hundreds that are occurring on Irish building sites every year.

They are the downside of the Celtic Tiger building boom. A building boom where the number and size of sites as well as the pace of development have increased dramatically in recent years. A boom where the profits from such developments has also increased hugely, and sadly so have the human costs. In 1997 over 2,000 building workers suffered injuries in workplace accidents.

Laying blame


So who is to blame? Is it the workers, the health and safety regulators or the contractors who develop and plan these sites?

An Phoblacht spoke this week to Dennis Farrell, a regional organiser for the Building and Allied Trades Union (BATU) and Robert Roe an inspector for the Health and Safety Authority.

Farrell told An Phoblacht that ``If 15 guards or nurses died in a year there would be a state of emergency''. He believes that the ``building industry accepts low standards across the board''.

A number of failures in the current make-up of the building industry were outlined by Brendan Farrell. The ``use of sub contractors is out of control. There are too many people doing their own thing on building sites''.

A second problem outlined by the BATU organiser was the competitive tendering in the industry. The low prices being bid for major projects meant that corners were being cut. Add to this the penalty clauses for late work and you have an industry with serious problems.

Poor Planning


Robert Roe, a Health and Safety Authority inspector, said that of the last 39 fatalities, half were due to poor planning on sites. One quarter were due to a lack of training, resources and equipment on sites. Only 25% were due to individual error.

What these statistics do not measure is building sites where there is a culture of ignoring safety regulations and where the pressure on workers to complete work to impossible schedules is ending up in serious accidents and a growing number of fatalities.

Roe outlined what the current safety procedures are on building sites. The main contractors on any site are supposed to appoint a project supervisor who will co-ordinate health and safety throughout the site.

Roe believed that current legislation is adequate. Compliance by builders is the core problem, though the increased pace of building was also a factor. Low tenders do also affect health and safety.

Throwing Away Money


However, Roe made the interesting point that 7% to 8% of a main contractor's costs were absorbed in poor safety practices. ``Contractors are throwing money away,'' said Roe. ``They are locked in a cycle where they think health and safety is a cost when it could actually save them money.''

Many site accidents caused by poor safety procedures cause considerable damage to materials and equipment as well as injuring workers. Proper safety practices would reduce this cost and save contractors money.

BATU's Dennis Farrell believes that there should be stiffer penalties for those found in breach of safety regulations and the role of subcontractors on sites should be addressed. Robert Roe told us that some sites could have up to 30 sub contractors at work.

From September 1998 the Health and Safety Authority (HSA) is setting up a special task force to ``increase significantly the amount of time spent on site with contractors''. The HSA hopes that this will increase safety standards on sites. The HSA measures are a positive first step but more action is needed.

The regulation of sub contractors and the whole tendering process for building contracts must be addressed. If not there will be more accidents and more deaths. It is a simple choice that the Dublin Government must take. What price the life of a worker in 1998?


Hyundai strikers



The consequences of the economic downturn in the Asian economies was evident in `South' Korea this week when 5,000 Hyundai workers and their families occupied the company's main production plants in the city of Ulsan.

Hyundai want to sack 615 workers in a state which once promised in law lifetime work guarantees. The lifetime guarantee has been ended and the Hyundai dispute is the first major industrial company to take advantage of the new situation.

The unions had offered to accept lower wages and shorter hours but management seems determined to assert the principle of job cuts.

Now 15,000 riot police are set to storm the Hyundai plant. There is little social welfare provision for the sacked workers and the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions which represents 600,000 Hyundai workers plans nationwide demonstrations in what could be a serious showdown with the South Korean Government. It just shows that when economic recession hits an economy it is workers and their rights that are affected first.


Glass Ceiling



Discrimination of women in the workplace is still sadly commonplace. A new study conducted by the University of Essex Institute for Labour Research has highlighted interesting areas of how wage inequality is perpetrated in the British labour market.

The Institutes's new discussion paper titled Glass Ceilings or Sticky Floors shows that women who are promoted still face considerable wage discrimination.

The study shows that women full-time workers earn 17% less than men and that women's wage growth in the first five years of the 1990s was 11% lower than that paid to men. Even though women were getting promotions they were not securing the same wage increases as men.

One wonders what the situation is in the Irish labour market. It seems unlikely that women here are not subject to the same form of not so subtle discrimination.

An Phoblacht
44 Parnell Sq.
Dublin 1
Ireland