Safe sites and Subbies don't mix
Last week, thousands of building workers marched through Dublin city centre, calling for proper union representation on all sites and for a safer, regulated working environment. Here, ROISIN DE ROSA examines the exploitative and dangerous system of subcontracted labour on construction sites.
Heath and Safety Authority figures for last year show that of the 57 people who died in work related 'accidents' 21 were killed on construction sites. 'Accidents' may be, but with the present system of building companies employing sub-contractors on the sites, rather than direct employment of their labour force - a system which government and courts have conspired to protect - health and safety regulations are regularly bypassed and ignored and are virtually unenforceable. Recent cases in the courts show why.
On Friday 25 January, Justice Kelly sent a building company director, Jason Madden, to prison for the weekend. Madden, who is a director of Kilkishen Homes Ltd, was jailed for breaches of safety regulations on a construction site at Monroe, near Nenagh, where he is building a number of houses.
Justice Kelly said that building contractors were "dicing with the lives and health of employees by taking short cuts, omitting to comply with the legislation, with one object in view - the maximisation of profit", and he sent Jason Madden off to jail.
As the judge said, it was, after all, only through providence that Madden was in court that day rather than at a funeral or the hospital bedside of one of those working on his site.
The site had been closed down before for breach of health and safety (H&S) regulations. This time it was over a failure to provide scaffolding on the outside of a building when men were working on the roof, and some bunting interfering with power lines and a teleporter.
Workers blamed
Madden's defence in the court was interesting. By way of exoneration, Madden confirmed that an employee of a subcontractor was observed working on a roof. But, said Madden, the worker had no authority to be there, was working at the location without the knowledge of the sub-contractor and arising from the incident he had been sacked.
other worker on the site, again an employee of a subcontractor, who had been driving a teleporter on the same date, was also and similarly dismissed.
Amazing! The building company, in breach of health and safety regulations, fails to provide scaffolding. A worker, as a direct consequence, is working in conditions of danger to life and limb. When the health and safety people come on site, the director responds that the worker is only employed by a subcontractor, he had no authority to be on the roof, was working there without the knowledge of the subcontractor, and he has therefore since been sacked! Problem solved. Madden absolved.
Madden's defence was that it was the worker, an employee of the subcontractor, who was to blame, not Mr Madden, nor even the sub contractor, who had not given the worker authority to be on the roof. So, was the employee up on the roof just to admire the view?
Adding insult to injury, it was brought to the judge's attention that during the court proceedings, outside of the courtroom, a Johnny Madden, father of Jason, had approached the health and safety inspector and had said, "you remember this face".
Justice Kelly said that he hadn't the slightest doubt that Johnny Madden was intimidating the inspector, but he was prepared to take a benign view of the incident after the father apologised and undertook not to intimidate the inspector again.
Well, Madden got his comeuppance on Monday 27 January, when he was back from his weekend in jail, with apologies to the judge, and promises of future compliance with regulations. Judge Kelly released him back onto the streets with a fine of Û10,000 for contempt of court.
Some indeed might argue that Û10,000 was not an exorbitant sum for a building company "dicing with men's lives", and intimidating the inspectors whose duty it was to protect the workers. But there is more to the case than meets the eye.
17 arrested in Dublin
On Tuesday 22 January, 17 workers had been in another court in Dublin, arrested at Park Motors on the North Circular Road at the behest of Collen Construction Ltd. It was stated in court that despite the order given last November to Collen, restraining picketing at the site, protests and pickets had resumed, with many workers coming from other sites and causing chaos.
When the 17 building workers were brought to court, some 100 supporters packed into the courtroom. The judge, Justice Smyth, pointed out that "this is not a theatrical performance or a political meeting" and warned that no amount of shouting, noise or roaring would deflect him from doing his duty, which appeared to be to uphold the subcontractor system for the benefit of the building company.
The picketing and protests at the Collen site arose as part of dispute over many years whereby workers have attempted, with some considerable success against the largest builders, to stop the sub-contracting system on sites. One of the 17 arrested explained that the largest companies, like MacNamara's, Walls, Pierse and others, have stopped using subcontractors and instead employ direct labour on proper tax and labour entitlements.
System of abuse
The system of subcontracting is well known to be the source of appalling abuse of workers' rights on sites. Workers say the system is similar to bonded labour practices of a century ago.
Workers on C45s, 'employed' by subcontractors, have no rights whatsoever, except of course the 'right' to pay the sub-contractor a slice of their wages, every week, for the pleasure of getting work on the site.
A subbie, a man working for a subcontractor, enjoys no protection from labour law, and gets no entitlements to pension, job security, holiday or sick pay, or even wet money when the job is rained off. An 'apprentice' can get good money, but no provision to attend training courses or acquire requisite certification. One untrained builder, or so-called 'apprentice' can become a liability to other workers when he makes a mistake or simply operates carelessly. This compounds the dangers on a site where the subcontractor, anxious to get the job done fast, ignores crucial safety regulations, as at Nenagh.
At the end of the working week, there is not even certainty that the contractor will appear on the site, or show himself in the usual pub, to deliver the subbies' wages.
The carrot for accepting these appalling conditions is that the pay is good, when it comes, and that after a year on a C45 tax system, workers can get a C2 form and become subcontractors themselves.
Courts uphold subbing system
Building workers, especially brickies and plasterers, over recent years have tried to bring this practice on the sites to an end, by placing flying pickets on offending sites. The building companies have responded by going to the courts to get injunctions against unnamed picketers.
When the workers who join these flying pickets are arrested and brought to court, they are fined. In the case last month, each of the 17 before the court had to pay Û250 and give undertakings not to picket on or off the site, again.
But the little matter of costs was left hanging by the judge. The threat to those workers who had protested their conditions continues: if you keep it up, we'll take your house or property off you, in costs.
In this the courts, through the law, are simply protecting a system that should have been outlawed years ago. And this doesn't stop at the courts. The government itself, statutory agencies, and even local authorities have seen no cause to insist that there be no subcontracted labour on their sites. In fact, the last occasion the protest against subcontracting hit the headlines was on the MacNamara site at Leinster House - the TDs' own backyard. The builders closed the site down and won.
172 deaths
Last year there were, according to the Annual Report of the Health & Safety Authority, 21 deaths in the construction industry, more than in any other sector in the economy. Over ten years, 172 men have died on the building sites.
Will Jason Madden's weekend in jail and a Û10,000 fine be enough to discourage other building companies from "taking short cuts to maximise profits" and distancing themselves via the subcontracting system from responsibility for safety on sites? Unlikely.
d will the Coalition government, with its connections to building companies, make the subcontracting system illegal and extend the protection of workers' rights to subbies on the sites? The answer appears obvious.
The government will stick with bonded labour and let the courts continue to threaten the livelihoods and liberty of those workers who protest.
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