Construction site life

Accident statistics are also highly impersonal aggregating accidents removes the people from the numbers - the workers become lost in the data. As McEvoy (1997 75) suggests, they become an abstract factor of production, to be bought at a price determined by impersonal market forces and combined with capital and resources at the will of the entrepreneur. But when people speak about safety, although they often still talk of accidents, they do so in a different way to this bald numerical approach. For the construction workforce, accidents are often a highly personal event - it is sadly very likely that someone with many years in the industry will have been witness to an accident, a near miss, or even been party to one themselves. The way people easily talk about such events illustrates how accidents are an inherent part of construction site life, for example ... 

It is therefore unsurprising that away from the formal manifestations of legal requirements in safety management systems and documents, safety becomes much more fluid and flexible. When those who work on sites everyday try to adopt the polarised lexicon of safety with their own understandings of construction site life, it doesn t quite work. Evidence of this can be readily found in site-produced safety documentation (as opposed to formal corporate documents distributed by contractor head offices), such as induction slides, where the site team often try to reposition safe/ unsafe within a wider context examples of practice are given as they were in the earliest legislation, the acknowledgement of variation... 

Although seemingly simple in its goals and intentions, the use of zero within construction site safety may not be so straightforward when considered from a constructionist perspective, and placed with the inconsistent, incoherent and ever changing realities of construction site life. Indeed, how zero manifests on sites, and how it is associated with safety, has the potential to influence its... 

Safety on construction sites operates within two distinct contexts. Firstly, the wider processes of the construction industry arguably create an environment in which safety struggles to survive. The constant pressures for production, as time and money are prioritised through the practices of lowest cost tendering and ever-squeezed margins along protracted and convoluted supply chains, are highly influential and can be readily identified as fundamental truths of construction site life. On sites, the presence and inevitability of... 

Mechanical devices are such an integral part of everyday life that there are many real-life sources you can investigate to gain more knowledge of their design and use. A construction site is a great place to visit for a day to learn more about hand tools, cranes, pumps, and other devices. Ask the construction supervisor if you can take a tour. 

Within this book, the quotes and extracts have been taken from real life from the author s conversations with managers, operatives and foremen about safety, from safety documentation that forms safety management systems, and from the safety signage used on sites. Examples within this text are representative of those used in the wider research that underpins this book, and they are shared here to illustrate some of the common ways in which safety is constructed on sites, as well as providing a good starting point for discussions and explorations of not only what safety is but also how it works on construction sites. 

Construction workers can t do their job without electricity. However, constant activity at a construction site makes it a particularly hazardous environment. Extension cords, temporary wiring panels, water hoses, materials laying around, and constant use of electric tools, make it extremely important that you are careful around electricity. Your life may depend on it. 

Working on construction sites is a way of life for many utility workers. Most injuries at these sites are serious but preventable. 

The example of Barbara Luz points out the provisional character of the tunnel construction site as a place and life world. Her story also shows that not only engineers and miners but also women and children followed the tunnel construction sites. It shows that their existence, even if only so indirectly, was affected by the dangers of tunnel building. And finally, it shows that there were definitely relationships between local residents and those that moved to the sites, even if the relationships were regarded mostly with suspicion or even outright disapproval. 

Moral reasons stem from a developing public awareness that something needs to be done to raise the quality of life at work. Attention is focusing on the ability of employers and project managers in the industry to handle a wide variety of issues, previously seen only as marginally relevant to the business. Environmental affairs, pollution, design safety, maintainability and other matters are now commonly discussed. There is a growing belief that it is morally unacceptable to put the safety and health of others (inside or outside the construction site) at risk, for profit or any other reason. 

---