The demand for labour in the construction industry is rising. Good news? With the government relying on migration and refusing to discourage indirect labour, it's not necessarily good for Britain's construction workers, and the thousands who want jobs on building sites...
Construction: contracts for the companies, insecurity for the workers
WORKERS, MAY 2008 ISSUE
A cursory glance around Britain's towns and cities reveals construction work being undertaken nearly everywhere one looks, and one could be forgiven for thinking that the industry is thriving. Representing some 10 per cent of GDP and with 2.1.million workers, it continues to grow. Indeed, such is the demand for labour that for the next five years, an additional 90,000 workers are needed annually.
At first, this may sound like good news. Yet there are predictions, from both the employers and trade union side, of continuing and worsening shortages of skilled labour affecting crucial construction projects. Good news for some perhaps, as shortages could push up the price of labour for certain skills, but will they? Good news for those employers who have won lucrative contracts. But what are the prospects for Britain's construction workers? What of the future and the skills we need as a working class here?
Construction site in Newcastle
Photo: WorkersThe construction industry is fragmented yet employs as much as 10 per cent of Britain's workforce. It is dominated by small firms – fewer than 10 per cent of the 200,000 plus employers have more than 13 workers and overall union density is less than 20 per cent. Yet over the years, standards in all spheres have been raised, through organisation and struggle.
Working in the construction industry is dangerous and transient by nature, and the workforce is an ageing one (average age 54). For example, of the 1,500 qualified steel erectors in Britain – crucial to any significant build – at least 500 will have retired by 2012. These workers have an enormous amount of knowledge and skill, not least in the art of struggle, which will be lost unless replaced.
Three main unions
Union involvement is historic with three principal unions, Unite (Amicus and T&G), Ucatt, and the GMB. Traditionally, Ucatt has covered such trades as carpenters, painting/decorating, brick-layers etc (the biblical trades); GMB the welders and platers; and Unite (through its series of mergers and transfers of engagement) all other trades in mechanical and electrical engineering, plumbing, civilian defence and transport.
Union organisation is difficult for many reasons – jobs finish and the workforce move on; the sheer number of small firms; agencies; bogus self-employment and migrant labour to name but some. There are organisations which set standards but these are achieved for only some. For the majority they remain out of reach. There are National Agreements and the National Agreement for the Engineering Construction Industry (NAECI – Blue Book) for the engineering construction industry; Joint Industry Boards (JIB Electrical and Scottish JIB) for the Electrical Contracting Industry; HVAC for heating and ventilation; JIB Plumbing, SNIJIB, MPA. Needless to say, the agreements only cover those employers who belong to their respective organisations and that is by no means all. National agreements have to be asserted and require perpetual vigilance – just as laws are reactive and remedial not proactive or pre-emptive.
Agency working and bogus self employment are rife and in many cases have been actively connived at, seen as a tax dodge. Short-term thinking in a way Thatcher would be proud of. Scotland has the highest proportion of direct labour, but this declines the further south one travels until London where it is thought that over 92 per sent of painters and decorators are self-employed, and no training can be found. Of the mechanical and electrical workers in the building of the Emirates Stadium at Arsenal football ground 77 per cent were from agencies.
So has this section of workers failed to struggle? A government report says that there was an 83 per cent decline in "recorded” stoppages in ten years to 2005. This gives the impression that workers have gone or are going to sleep; that the conflict between labour and capital has ceased. It hasn't.
Uneven development
There is uneven development and there are regular examples of workers "cabining up”, examples of localised action which are rarely reported or recorded. Illegal "in the eyes of law” and in breach of the nat-ional agreements, these actions are often sparked by such things as mistreatment, an affront to dignity, safety, and payment irregularity. Sometimes it is for advance, sometimes on a national scale, sometimes from a purely self interested perspective – as is every worker's right, if not duty.
Organisation is strongest on Blue Book sites, where workers often know each other from previous jobs and form a core of organised labour, responsible for driving up skills, safety and standards. Category 1 sites (major new construction projects) have auditors to monitor every aspect of the job, but that doesn't mean everything is automatic, demanding unions' vigilance over employer practices – 'twas ever thus. Last year, the country's first national strike across all main sites in years was averted; a consultative ballot showed overwhelming support for action. The employers had insisted that the wage agreement include the buying out of the tea break at a price of 60p for every hour worked. But before anyone scoffs, think of working between five and seven hours in either freezing or hot conditions – the workforce nationally told the employers they could offer £10 an hour but the break was not for sale – the employers backed down.
When it comes to apprenticeships and training even the employers bleat loudly about the shortage of skilled labour, yet unsurprisingly do not take on the thousands needing a workplace. Over the last 20 years there has been a decline of nearly 50 per cent in apprenticeships in the electrical industry, down from 5,000 a year to 2800.
With over 60,000 applying for the paltry 6,000 training places, and an existing 7,000 unplaced workers who have passed the entrance test for traditional apprenticeships, clearly the employers do not see it as their problem. Why should they, when there is a seemingly endless supply of "off the peg” labour, primarily from eastern Europe?
Some may argue "it doesn't matter who builds it so long as it gets built anyway”, but they are wrong. Migrant workers can always return home – the new Warsaw football stadium may prove interesting, unless of course it is contracted to foreign firms. Capital flows where return is greatest, and as far as construction goes, clearly this isn't into our future. There is not so much a skills shortage as an investment shortage.
The government shows its concern by cutting funding for training for NVQ Level 3, and given that government procurement accounts for some 47 per cent of all work, refuses to insist that all contractors who are awarded government contracts employ direct labour.
The need to organise the hundreds of thousands not in a union is clear. Let us not forget where real power lies, at the point of production, and make the demand for our youth to be trained is to demand a future for Britain and its workers. The demands are made but what do we do when they yet again pay mere lip service? Our best organised have to lead in the demand for a future. Time is against us.
Free movement of labour used to undermine rates Migrant labour and bogus self employment often go hand in hand and are being used increasingly on major projects. Also, more contracts are being awarded to foreign companies.
We all know that employers seek to exploit migrant labour to a greater extent than indigenous workers; we also know that a divided workforce, along any lines, only aids the employer. Language is often a problem for migrant workers, and many feel the resentment of indigenous workers who have out-of-work mates, skilled and qualified, yet see a steady flow of foreign labour coming onto site. Some successes have been achieved, notably the recent improvement to air travel provision in the Blue Book. Polish workers were being made to travel from Plymouth to Luton before catching a flight to Poland for the long weekends, unpaid. Taking up the issue brought the majority into membership.
But in companies where there is no British labour, unionisation is shied away from – although these workers owe it to those who have fought for the wages, terms and conditions they have while on a categorised site.
Additionally a recent judgment made by the EU's European Court of Justice gives foreign firms the right to ignore collective agreements and legally pay workers below agreed wage levels. The ruling enabled a Polish subcontractor in Germany to lawfully pay construction workers less than half the German construction industry's agreed wage. The implications for Britain are obvious.