Finding the pressure points

The image is grim. The reality is grimmer. When 217 workers on a Multiplex site at Canary Wharf were asked to mark up body diagrams to show where they were suffering, the results were not good: 64% suffered cuts, 52% had skin complaints and 43% suffered from respiratory problems, 8% had asthma, 6% reproductive problems.

This is a first for Multiplex and for UK construction. Not the high level of health problems; that must be the same, or perhaps worse, on every site. But the use of this technique – called body mapping – to work out what problems groups of workers have, and then make changes to improve their lot.

Steve Storey, health and safety manager at Multiplex's West India Quay site, where the body mapping took place, has his work cut out now. The bosses like the idea. Not only will the remainder of the 700 workers at this site go through the process: the contractor wants all the workers on all its jobs to body map and that includes Wembley Stadium and the massive White City project which will see 10,000 workers at its peak.

For the workers
But body mapping is a tool for workers, not managers. It is an ideal way for people who don't speak the same languages to communicate. Developed in Italy 30 years ago, it became popular in the USA and Canada in the late '90s, and the unions over here started promoting it a couple of years ago.

UCATT convener Paul Donnelly brought the idea to the Multiplex job. After witnessing a fatal accident, scaffolder Donnelly was moved to improve his written and computing skills so he could become a convener and make a difference to health and safety on site. Concerned about the potential dangers of dust from MDF that was being machined on site, Donnelly put his head together with Rossina Harris from Lewisham College, and together they came up with body mapping.

During European Health and Safety Week, with five sessions each day, Harris and fellow trainer Frank Sheppard ran workshops for the 217 men. Posters to flag up the event were translated into other languages, as were the UN Hazard Classes. Sessions started with explanations about what hazardous substances were and discussions about the problems they could cause. The response from the workers was positive: only two body maps were unusable. "What they liked was that people were listening to what they were saying," says Harris.

People told Donnelly "I wish we'd known this before" and that they would have liked longer sessions than the 45 minutes. Others were unaware what other trades were doing, so didn't realise they needed to protect themselves.

What's next
So what happens now? Storey points out that the exercise itself has raised awareness, but the real strength of body mapping is that it should force managers to improve conditions. A small step is to simplify and translate all the data sheets into the several languages spoken on site.

Some subcontractors are rewriting method statements or risk assessments following feedback from the workforce. Others will be asked to improve their PPE. Some workers, for example, had been issued old heavy duty PVC gloves; impossible to do fiddly work in and very sweaty.

The process has certainly alerted some subcontractors about the risks, both to workers and the business, of not looking after employees' health. Alarmed by the potential damage which MDF dust can do, a joinery contractor is considering health monitoring for its employees, says Donnelly.

Donnelly has suggested air sampling. It's grim to think of all those people breathing in a hazardous cocktail of cement dust, paint fumes and MDF, suffering from it and never complaining. They don't speak up because of the culture and the structure of the industry. "They do think of complaining, but because of the past culture of the industry, things not being dealt with, they think there is no point in complaining," says Sheppard.

Multiplex has made an important move with the first body mapping session. What it needs to do now is to act on what has been revealed.