Workers' welfare

When news broke of Laing O'Rourke's Terminal 5 pay deal in January 2003, it stirred up a toxic mixture of offended snobbery and open envy in the heartland of middle England. Newspaper headlines screamed that mere builders were to earn up to £55,000 a year and the Daily Mail speculated that this would attract hordes of rapacious immigrants from undesirable countries. The reaction in the industry was hardly less favourable, with electricians blowing a fuse and rival contractors attacking the deal as "crazy".

For BAA, this agreement is not crazy, nor is it paternalistic philanthropy. It is an acknowledgement of facts as they stand. The operator needs 4000 skilled and committed workers to build its terminal at a time when skilled and committed workers are in short supply. And although the pay level grabbed the headlines, it was only part of the benefits package – having tempted workers to the site, BAA has to keep them there. So, in addition to pay, the agreement provides for first-class working conditions and welfare facilities.

Sharon Doherty, BAA's organisational effectiveness director, sums up what's in it for the client: "It has been our intention to provide the best facilities in terms of staff welfare that was achievable for the T5 site to attract and retain a quality workforce," she says. "The key to increased productivity is having a happy and stable workforce and there is a business advantage for BAA in achieving this."

Doherty points out that the industrial relations package was a contributory factor in achieving the project's recent successes. "Without Laing O'Rourke's continuing support and progress, the project wouldn't have been on time and budget and wouldn't have reached the milestones that it currently has." But BAA and Laing O'Rourke are still working tirelessly to attract workers to meet the labour needs of T5. The firms have agreed to introduce measures such as coach services from places such as Essex and Kent for the labour force to travel to site, and workers have also been allowed discount flights so they can jet in from other parts of the UK.

If it’s not safe we don’t do it. That’s how we work now. That’s what’s different

Richard Ellis, piling foreman

George Brumwell, general secretary of UCATT, was at the centre of the initial deal for the building sector, and he says it has changed the industry. "At a stroke when news broke of the pay deal, the industry's recruitment problems eased. The deal set a new industry standard in terms of welfare and industrial relations."

Having agreed a deal with general construction workers, which covered the civil engineering phase of the project, BAA then had to agree another with the M&E sector for the fit-out. Paul Corby, Amicus' national construction officer, who worked to implement the deal with BAA, says that he has never known a client to work so hard to provide the basic framework for a successful project. "No client has given such a high degree of support for a commitment to a directly employed workforce," he says. The M&E engineers negotiated a similar deal to the builders.

Doherty says it is too early to measure the success of the M&E sector's productivity, as the M&E presence is just starting to build up on the site, but she says the newly signed agreement makes for stable industrial relations. "Historically, the M&E sector's workforce has been militant in its industrial relations activity, but through a partnership with Paul Corby from Amicus we have been able to achieve a deal."

A tectonic shift in industrial relations is the result of more than just money; it is about respect for people, and that means the health and safety of workers. Brumwell says that health and safety and training on projects are paramount. And in his role as Construction Skills Certification Scheme chairman, he is eager that the whole of the T5 project is certified to the scheme.

It’s getting the lads to be safe for themselves, not because it’s Policy

Declan Wilson, concreter

A recent survey on the T5 project revealed that, so far, 450 Laing O'Rourke employees are signed up to CSCS competence, with a further 150 registering each month. Furthermore, the survey found that out of the 3000 T5 workers currently on site, 73% agreed or agreed strongly that T5 was a safer site than any other they have worked on previously.

Mike Evans, T5's health and safety manager, says standards on T5 should be much better than in the general industry because of the sheer scale of the project. "If T5 operated at average industry safety standards then we would probably have two workers dead by now and more than 600 injured," he says.

A lot of older blokes are finding the safety culture hard to adjust to

Mark Willson, joiner

The UK construction industry operates with about 12 reportable accidents per million site hours, and so far on T5 there has been five per million. "The aim is to get to one," says Evans.

BAA's "One in a million campaign" has been running for several years and has now been followed by an initiative called the "Injury and Incident-free Programme", which is BAA's latest safety campaign for T5. This demands that there are no safety-related incidents on site.

As well as the prevention of accidents, health and safety is about the wellbeing of the workforce. Evans says new T5 workers must fill in a medical questionnaire and that the 30% of workers who work in safety critical positions, such a crane drivers, have to undergo a full medical check at the on-site occupational health centre.

The site's health screening facility has so far revealed that about one-third of the workforce who operate in safety-critical positions have got problems with such ailments as diabetes, high and low blood pressure and poor eyesight. "The aim is not to exclude people but to enable people to return to work healthier," says Evans.