Flurry of first-day accidents should ring alarm bells.
A news report about an accident hurting or even killing a worker on their first day on site should give us all cause to pause. Two news reports within 24 hours detailing the maiming or death of a pair of workers on their first day on site is a major case for concern. But three such reports in the space of 24 hours is nothing short of a national scandal and one of which the combined construction and demolition industries should feel rightly ashamed.
So the cases of James Wilson, Dan Whiston, and an unnamed employee of D&R Maintenance Solutions should be the talking point of the industry for the weeks and months to come.
Under normal circumstances, I am keen to separate the generally improving safety record of the demolition industry with that of construction. Traditionally, the statistical combining of these two increasingly disparate industry sectors merely serves to make one look better than they really are while making the other appear significantly worse.
However, since UK demolition seems content to allow its training standards to be dictated by a less safe industry sector whilst being charged handsomely for the privilege, and since these three reports followed in such quick succession, I am willing to make an exception.
Site workers in both construction and demolition are legally required under the Construction Design & Management Regulations 2007 Regulation 13.4, to undergo an induction that should make them aware of the inherent dangers of their place of work. In most instances, this is being done. Indeed, just last week, I was personally given an induction before being allowed to photograph a high reach excavator from OUTSIDE the perimeter of the site.
But even if 99 percent of the construction and demolition industry IS carrying out thorough and formal inductions, there is still one percent that isn’t. And based on these latest accident reports, it appears that the problem is considerably larger than one percent.
Some have suggested that the “first day on the job” claim is merely a cover for the lack of PAYE and National Insurance paperwork associated with employing someone who is still claiming benefits. Others believe this is a legal loophole used by contractors to conceal an inherent lack of training and reduce the financial penalty in the event of a successful prosecution. Certainly, the £40,000 fine handed down to Bloom Plant for an accident that partially scalped a worker leaving him with one eye seems unusually lenient.
Personally, I struggle to draw the distinction. The fact that a worker was almost killed is no better or worse if they have worked for the company for half an hour or half their life.
Regardless of whether the “first day” is used as an excuse for not training, to conceal the fact that the worker in question is unskilled and bereft of experience, or merely as a get-out to lessen a fine, we MUST learn from these latest incidents. Failing that, we might consider changing the wording on the demolition green card from Trainee to Cannon Fodder.
