I love my job. But every day of the 11 years I’ve been in the construction industry – since starting as a carpenter’s apprentice and working my way up to site manager – I’ve seen things that scare the hell out of me.
For the past five years I was a site manager at a large company. Management will tell you safety is a priority, but it’s not. I tried to make changes on countless occasions and I got told ‘it’s not in the budget’, ‘our timeframe is too short’ and ‘just do what you gotta do to get the job done’. I ended up walking away from that role because no matter how hard I pushed, nothing changed. It was in my best interest to leave, before something happened and I wore the cost of it.
I work mostly on tier one projects (tier one companies usually work on big government projects or projects over $30 million). These are massive jobs with hundreds of people on the worksite every day. Every tier one construction company undergoes a safety induction on every job. At these inductions we are drilled about safety, yet when we leave the room and go out on site the safety is almost completely disregarded. Working at height with no harness? 'No worries, mate'. No handrail? 'Meh'.
I've been on too many sites with tradesmen who cannot speak a word of English – they pull out their phones and use Google Translate to communicate.
Communication issues on site also really hamper safety. In my time in the trade, there’s been an influx of foreign labour and this has led to a huge problem in communication. I've been on too many sites with tradesmen who cannot speak a word of English – they pull out their phones and use Google Translate to communicate. You can imagine what this is like in an emergency.
When there’s a death on sight, construction companies across the nation do an internal safety audit to show Work Cover or any other parties concerned that appropriate safety steps were taken. But once completed, it’s back to work as usual and safety soon gets disregarded. I’ve never seen significant, lasting changes made after a fatal accident.
Women and bullying
When I started out, the attitude on the worksite was always to have a laugh and give the young guy or new bloke a bit of grief. Nowadays, most guys are a bit more aware of where the line is between a bit of a laugh and outright bullying – but don’t get me wrong, bullying still happens.
Only in the last five years has mental health been recognised as a serious issue. We now have support groups like MATES In Construction (MIC) who offer free services for anyone in the industry dealing with anything from depression to alcoholism, drug use to family issues.
Today there is still a tough guy mentality that makes it hard to speak out when you need to. Many are still afraid to ask for a mental health day, wanting to avoid becoming a target of bullying.
In the last five years, however, I have seen positive change in terms of women becoming more accepted in the construction industry. I believe this is due to a generational shift. The older guys who thought women didn’t have a place in the industry, or were not strong enough for the roles on sites, are starting to fade out.
Young guys today don’t care if it’s a male or female on site, so long as they can do the job.
With women on worksites, blokes' behaviour has generally improved. In my experience, when women are present guys think more about how they say things before they say it. So that helps stamp out some of the low-key bullying. At the very least, there's a lot less sexist banter and swearing, that's for sure.
It’s great to see the industry embrace women and start tackling mental health, but if we don’t start seriously tackling safety then we are in big trouble.
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