Stop the carnage
STOP THE CARNAGE!
Week in week out workers are killed or maimed in 'accidents' on site. Over 3,000 building workers have been killed on site since the Health and Safety at Work Act became law in 1974 (this figure doesn't include all those people who have died as a result of work-related illness). This is the hidden cost of the building industry, workers killed or crippled leaving loved ones to pick up the pieces. There is a popular perception that construction work is unavoidably dangerous and therefore the risks attached are inevitable. The fact is, all building work can be made safe.
Why then is health and safety on sites so bad? In a word profit, it costs money to ensure safe working conditions with adequate training and appropriate and well maintained equipment, money the employers, developers and investors would rather keep themselves. Fast production processes and deadlines (often literally), involving piecework and bonuses which force workers to work dangerously fast, are responsible for killing and maiming more building workers than any other single reason in the construction industry. Why do contractors consider workers
lives so expendable that sites have become death-traps?
It is cheaper for the employer to allow dangerous
conditions rather than to maintain a safe working
environment.
LEGAL DEADENDS!
Most 'accidents' aren't investigated and when they are they rarely go to court. Even if a company is found guilty, its fine is a fraction of the cost of preventing injuries and fatalities. No building employer has been jailed for a death on site. The Health & Safety Executive have the power to investigate 'accidents' and prosecute guilty employers, but it lacks both the resources and political will to do so. Despite much rhetoric the unions have done little, beyond calling for further legislation, how this will help when current law isn't enforced, is anyone's guess. We cannot rely on the law, employers, the HSE, politicians (no matter how left-wing) or full time union officials. It is not their lives at risk. The only way that this horrendous situation can be changed is, by the workers. Only site workers have the motivation and desire to fight for safe sites.
WHERE OUR POWER LIES!
The site is the only place that building workers have real power, so we must use it there! Although it is important to get site workers in a union, we need to move beyond the unions, to organise on an industrial basis and create democratic structures controlled by the rank and file. We must'nt let the bosses to divide us by nationality, race, religion or anything else. It is only through our class solidarity that we can stop the killings and maimings.
NEVER CROSS A PICKET LINE!
We need to elect in mass assemblies, site stewards, conveners, and safety reps who are instantly recallable and subject to the control of the workforce. Then we must subject the construction process to daily health and safety checks. If any hazards are found we tell the employer(s) that if it is not rectified immediately no one will work there. If anyone is sacked we will strike. Also if any worker is killed or seriously injured work will stop and will not be resumed until all safety issues are resolved. Rank and file building workers must picket sites where death or serious injuries occur including other sites! 'Prevention is better than cure' but we must raise the costs so that employers realise that it's not worth neglecting our health and safety.
SAFETY ON SITE BECAUSE WE ARE WORTH IT!
The only language building employers understand is cost and that's why they are afraid of industrial action, it threatens their profits. Whilst strike action is usually a weapon of last resort in the case of safety on site, it should be used immediately, to protect life and limb. It is clear that only when workers hit employers where it hurts - in the pocket - will they take our safety seriously.
