Chen, a Chinese builder from Da-ao village in Fuqing, has been working on construction sites in London for two years. In a recent accident, he lost a finger on his left hand when it was crushed by a metal beam. To survive, and to continue sending money home, he carries on working with just the use of his right hand.
"Accidents happen all the time and that's the rule of the industry," says Chen. "We have to look after ourselves and live with the risks. We have only our own bad luck to blame if we get hurt." But was it really just a simple matter of him being in the wrong place at the wrong time?
Construction is one of the biggest and most dangerous industries in Britain. In the last 25 years, more than 2,800 people have died from injuries on sites. Serious incidents occur far too frequently, with more than 1,000 workers a month hurting themselves.
According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), 8% of Britain's 2.3m construction workers are migrants, yet they account for 17% of work-related deaths. Research shows that, as a result of their position within an industry built on rules of maximum flexibility and profitability through subcontracting, they are more at risk than their local counterparts.
HSE inspector Simon Hester says: "Nearly 40% of construction workers in London are migrants. We find they are increasingly working in unsafe and unhealthy environments. Construction workers are more at risk on small sites, with far more fatalities and injuries – and many migrant workers tend to work on small sites."
Last April, HSE's construction division began a 12-month outreach campaign, managed by Hester, to raise awareness of health and safety and improve protection for those workers in London. The project targeted three groups: Polish, Gujarati and Romanian, who account for 25%, 8% and 6% respectively of the UK's migrant construction workforce.
At the Polish Association in west London, HSE's Polish-language posters stand out. "The community and press have been very supportive," says Bartek Zdrowowicz, HSE's Polish outreach officer.
Jerzy Kapszewicz, director of Kasa, a popular Polish employment and training centre, is optimistic about the scheme. "Before Poland joined the EU in 2004, Polish workers were in similar situations to undocumented migrants," he says. "They had nowhere to turn to when accidents occurred. Now we have more than 100 Poles here each month to do training for the Construction Skills Health and Safety test, as part of the requirement to apply for a CSCS [Construction Skills Certification Schemes] card."
Despite this, Zdrowowicz says there is often confusion about what the HSE does. "The equivalent institution in Poland deals with employment issues, as well as health and safety, and it can fine people immediately," he says. "Once, we inspected a site where the Polish builders thought I was local and started to discuss how much cash they had on them in case we were going to fine them on the spot."
For many, the biggest barrier to health and safety on sites is language. Zbigniew Hargesheimer, a former building worker who now trains people at Kasa, says: "I wonder why there isn't funding for migrants to learn English for construction. Many employers don't give safety inductions in Polish."
Part of the HSE outreach team's job is to correct that. One day I joined Zdrowowicz and HSE inspector Monica Babb on several unannounced site inspections in Kensington.
Dozens of high-risk building sites were situated in the affluent neighbourhood. The first we came across was a two-storey site with a huge amount of woodwork and dust, but not one fire extinguisher. The Gujarati-speaking labourers were working away with their heads down. There were no proper chairs for them to sit on for a break, nor basic washing facilities or warm water. Babb gave a prohibition notice to the foreman and asked him to stop work immediately until improvements were made.
A worker looked on nervously, but soon felt more relaxed after talking to outreach officer Rhaynukaa Soni on the phone. He told me: "The bosses don't care about our health and safety, and we can't complain. If you do, you'll get sacked, like I was in my last job in Wembley."
Soni says it has taken time to convince workers that the HSE isn't the same as the UK Border Agency. "Building trust is the most important thing," she says. "The first thing we tell people is that health and safety law protects you even if you're not working here legally. We tell them they can make anonymous reports about their work."
At midday, we went into an almost-refurbished flat where five Polish painters were working. Zdrowowicz's explanations in Polish reassured them, which allowed Babb to then advise them to change their ladder.
Turning a corner in Kensington, we visited a five-storey site where the scaffolding was so poorly installed, with clearly visible gaps, that it looked almost like the Romanian builders were working in mid-air. They spoke little English and didn't seem to know the safety risk they had been put in by their employer, who said he couldn't get back in time to meet us. We crawled up the stairs behind one of the workers who showed us around. Babb decided not to go up to the top floor as they were becoming shaky without secure flooring and rails. Unsurprisingly, a prohibition notice was issued.
There are reasons why Romanian workers in particular can find themselves doing high-risk work like this: many of the estimated 50,000 in the UK are in construction as a result of restrictions on their work rights. Both Romanians and Bulgarians have UK employment limited to small quotas in food processing and agriculture, despite their EU member-state status – unless they declare themselves to be "self-employed" agents.
Construction union Ucatt estimates there are 1m casual construction workers with false "self-employed" status in the UK, made possible by the government's Construction Industry Scheme.
These workers are denied employment rights and employers (often agencies) avoid paying national insurance for them. Workers can be dismissed without notice, as reportedly happened at the London Olympic site last year.
Ivan, from Bulgaria, has been working in construction in London for eight years. He says: "The Bulgarians and Romanians tend to keep quiet about their safety and rights because of this false status."
He tells me of an office and shopping complex in central London where he was employed by a contractor. "The company employs mainly Russians and Bulgarians and our wages were kept low," Ivan says. "Their intention was to make us work to the bone – I became extremely stressed and depressed but carried on, to pay my rent."
In front of the Romanian Orthodox Church in London, Romanian workers show similar despair. A "self-employed" builder, who has just finished working on a hotel development, says: "Health? Safety? Bosses don't care." Work has dried up and he's now sleeping rough.
The HSE campaign will build on a solid base of achievement and run for another year. There may also be extra funds to extend the project to other main migrant construction worker communities, such as Bulgarians, Lithuanians and Chinese.
Simon Hester has identified the Chinese, in particular, as a hidden and exploited group. The tens of thousands in London work mostly on small sites via gangmasters, because it's difficult to access large companies without papers. These workplaces may have few safety mechanisms in place.
Helen Yang, a community organiser for London Citizens, remembers the tragic death of a Chinese builder: "He had fallen from 12ft after stumbling through a skylight that wasn't glass-fitted and not properly marked by his employer, Sharaz Butt of Alcon Construction." While the employer was sentenced to 12 months in prison for manslaughter, the worker left behind his wife and three young children.
Ah Long, a gangmaster in London, admits there have never been safety instructions or risk assessment on sites he knows about. "It's not considered necessary because most Chinese builders work indoors … they rarely wear safety boots – we don't think it's necessary."
Chinese construction workers' informal immigration status, and their desperate need to get work and get paid, has kept them in high-risk workplaces.
On my tour with the HSE, at a shop in Watford, I was led into a 4 sq m space where 42-year-old Ah Zhong and his two co-workers live. They've been here for four years, as low-cost builders for a care-home owner.
"My boss found me years ago, when I left Morecambe Bay after the other team of workers drowned there in 2004," Zhong says. "We were paid £40 per day. When I got badly burnt by a steamer because no one showed me how to use the machine, my bao gong tou [gangmaster] took half the money I was given during my sick days.
"Now the British boss asked me to work for him directly – so he can spend less on my labour. We've been paid £50 per day. Health and safety isn't his concern, but this is an ongoing, regular job that's difficult to find. Many builders have to put up with frequent wage arrears or non-payment."
Chris Kaufman, a Unite union spokesman and formerly a board member of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA), said: "The construction industry is most similar to agriculture in that there are countless illegal practices … Unite is keen to see the remit of gangmasters licensing extended to other sectors such as construction."
Source: guardian.co.uk/
The Construction Skills Certification Scheme has been developed to provide a uniform qualification to workers in the construction sector.
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