Interview: Steve Brawley

Steve Brawley is hesitant. “As long as it doesn’t make me look like I’m part of some old boys club.” The JIB’s new chief executive eyes a row of crystal whisky decanters, which look perfectly at home in the imposing oak-panelled surroundings. I am interviewing Brawley in the office of ECA group chief executive David Pollock. And he has a point.

At that moment, Iain Macdonald, the ECA’s head of education and training, waltzes into the vast office-cum-meeting room. “Managed to borrow a tie in the end, then?”

Brawley grins and fingers his pink, polka-dot neck attire somewhat uncertainly.

“Iain’s my fashion adviser,” quips the man whose habitually relaxed dress sense proves the first indicator of an affable disposition.

It’s all happy families here. After all, Brawley worked alongside some of the ECA’s finest for more than seven years, prior to taking on his role last October as head of the Joint Industry Board, where the ECA and Unite come together to agree wages, grades and industrial relations issues.

Yet maybe that’s why there is a detectable undercurrent of doubt when it comes to today’s photo shoot. Not only does the boardroom reek of old-school opulence, but Brawley’s presence within it brings to the foreground a burning question: how has the union reacted to an ‘ECA man’ taking the helm at the JIB? Is the industry truly convinced that Brawley can tread an impartial path between the ECA and Unite?

“I cannot be partial and I will not be partial and I’d like to make that very clear. I’ve made that my objective and I will stick to that.”

Evidently, he has pre-empted this particular line of inquiry and sounds quite the politician – a vocation perhaps missed when you also consider his ability to shrewdly talk around every question he is asked.

To be fair, when it comes to unbiased positioning, Brawley has the experience. During his time at the ECA, he worked on the M&E Major Projects Agreement as secretary to the Terminal 5 Joint Council, the key body responsible for managing industrial relations issues on the ambitious Heathrow project.

“It was a very good introduction to working with a number of parties, because it brought together Unite, the ECA, the HVCA and Select within the agreement. There was a very clear need to be even-handed and take account of the wishes of the parties. That’s quite good preparation for working in the JIB, which in essence has to be a neutral body.”

Brawley has enjoyed a long career in industrial relations. In his first construction project back in 1973 he worked for British Steel, assisting contractors with recruitment for a new steelworks in Teesside.

“Industrial relations in the 1970s were quite turbulent, and that particular project had its fair share of difficulties. I’d go to see someone about recruiting and they’d be in the middle of a strike and that got me interested because I’d be thinking, ‘Why are they doing that? And what can be done about it?’”

Most people are aware that these were tumultuous times for the industry, but in many ways industrial relations are not as fraught as they used to be. Does Brawley think that the JIB’s role has, by necessity, changed since it was founded back in 1968?

“The industry moves fast, so the JIB needs to move fast to keep up and, if possible, to get ahead of the industry and anticipate its needs. It needs common standards, it needs benchmarks, it needs competence. And those are areas where the JIB is particularly strong. A good example of that is the Electrotechnical Certification Scheme (ECS), which has proved extremely successful at certifying the competence of individuals.

“However, if you look back into the history of the JIB, its activities in the early days were much more focused on fire-fighting in industrial relations terms, and dealing with industrial relations issues. The emphasis is not what it was in the 1960s and 1970s. The world has changed and the JIB has changed with it.”

I cannot be partial and I will not be partial and I’d like to make that very clear. I’ve made that my objective and I will stick to that

However, Brawley’s insistence that the JIB is keeping up with the times is bound to raise a few eyebrows.

For one thing, current issues surrounding the use of agency labour seem to suggest otherwise. With agencies now an endemic part of the electrical contracting sector, some might say that the JIB’s Rule 17, which states that no more than 50% of labour on site can be derived from agencies, is now outmoded and unenforceable.

Brawley looks a little surprised. “I don’t think you’ll find, necessarily, that agencies are part and parcel of the average contractor’s business model. Some companies, generally the larger ones, use agency labour as a significant part of their business models, but the typical JIB contractor doesn’t often – if at all – engage agency labour. The typical JIB firm is a small to medium-sized contractor that employs around eight to 10 people.”

Point noted, but this begs the question, how can the JIB claim to be representative of an industry if its members do not, as a rule, include its major players?

Currently, the number of electricians directly employed on the JIB’s books is 20 000. The JIB estimates that there are another 20 000 working for labour agencies.

Brawley’s view on many of these agencies is predictable.

“If the business model you adopt revolves around providing very cheap labour, there is a price to pay for that,” he says. “The cost, on the face of it, might be a good one, but if it’s an unqualified workforce – a workforce that hasn’t got its competence certified – the quality will be questionable. Any employer needs to appreciate that there’s a major risk if he wants to go down that route.”

Brawley forecasts that the current downturn will bring about a fall in agency workers.

“Companies will reduce top-up labour until they are only employing direct labour. Only at that point, if they have to, will they consider redundancies within their own direct workforces. The number directly employed on our books is at the same level that it has been for a couple of years now.”

According to many, accepting the necessary role of agency workers is not all the JIB needs to work on if it’s going to adapt for a changing future. M&E companies don’t want two separate sets of administrative procedures for their m&e operatives, and they have been calling for the ECA and the HVCA to get their act together and create a combined m&e working agreement. But the HVCA has no such JIB mechanism in its industrial relations arrangements.

HVCA representatives want to know how the JIB will be reformed so that it is acceptable to the mechanical side of the industry – and why it has not changed to accommodate the suggestions and requirements the mechanical sector has already put forward.

“The scope of the JIB currently is the electrotechnical sector. That’s the sector that the JIB currently serves, and that’s at the wishes of the parties. If the parties came to the JIB and said, ‘We’d like now for you to extend your coverage and to extend your scope to cover the mechanical sector,’ I think the JIB would be well capable of doing that.”

Brawley is a little reticent. “At this point in time, we haven’t received any requests from any point of view, but we stand ready and capable of developing the current structures to encompass the mechanical sector, should that sector wish to be encompassed under a JIB arrangement.”

The chief exec falters and, not for the first time, seems a little nervous. More new boys club than old boys club, it is possible that he needs a little more time to find his feet before discussing some of the more pressing issues that the industry faces.

When it is pointed out that, in the past, the HVCA has been a vocal opponent of a JIB-type agreement, he takes a similar stance.

We stand ready and capable of developing the current structures to encompass the mechanical sector

“I worked for the ECA for a number of years, and I’m not sure I did detect any degree of antipathy for the JIB from the HVCA. I wasn’t aware of any particular opposition to the JIB. And I haven’t been at the JIB for very long, but I haven’t detected any so far.”

Train to gain?

Brawley is justifiably proud of the link the JIB now has with the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). The relationship promotes skills beyond the Level 3 electrician, allowing those with the relevant ECS card to become IET members through the JIB competence structure.

“That’s something I find quite radical and helpful for the industry. In the early days, everything seemed to stop at the technician grade, and that seemed to be the top level within the sector, but we’re now well beyond that into project managers, site managers and access into engineering grades.”

Inspirational indeed, but is training in general set for a rapid decline due to the current recession? Although he concedes that it is difficult at this stage to deduce what effect the economic climate has had on the training of electricians, Brawley is confident that contractors will invest readily in their futures and continue to take on apprentices.

“In the past, when times have been hard economically, JIB companies have continued to train. They may not have trained as many people as the previous year, but they’ve tended to continue the training effort because they know that no recession lasts for ever, just as no boom time lasts for ever.

“What they try to do is keep the feedstock of people coming into their business, because if the economy becomes more buoyant, they want to have the certainty of good people within their firms.”

Apprentices contributing strongly

The argument that stage 3 and stage 4 apprentice wage rates are too high has become a familiar one among contractors, especially in a downturn, but Brawley contests this.

“Once apprentices have been employed for 18 months to two years, they can become very effective in the workplace. They do require supervision, but they’ve covered a lot of ground and can be extremely capable and productive. Towards the back end of an apprenticeship, the apprentice is contributing almost as strongly as his colleague who is working alongside him as a craftsman.”

True to form, Brawley is just as positive about the future of the JIB in the recession as he is about the industry’s training commitment.

“We don’t have any evidence of companies resigning from the JIB because of the cost. And I’d have thought that if that was going to happen, we would have had evidence of that by now.

“If you work for a JIB company and you’re made redundant, which happens from time to time, whether we’re in a recession or not, the good thing is that if you move to another JIB firm, you will receive fair treatment, fair rates and fair benefits. You have the support of benefits like Bupa that are not available outside the ‘family’.

“Nobody can predict the future, but if you look at those who have been with the JIB for a long time, they’ve tended to stick with the JIB even in difficult times, and we’ve had extremely difficult times over the past 40 years.”

Brawley seems confident. Yet overall, there’s something about him that makes you feel you’re not actually getting to the heart of the matter. It may be a little hasty to take such a stance with a man who has been on the job for less than six months, and JIB legend Ron Allender, who held the position for many years before taking retirement, is a tough act to follow. Watch this space.