Letting the bodies pile high
By its actions and its inactions, the UK construction industry is allowing the bodies of its workers pile high.
If you came across a person experiencing a potentially suicidal mental health episode, I’d like to think that most of us would stop, offer assistance and potentially talk them down.
If you happened upon a homeless person that was clearly struggling, I’d like to think that most of us would stop, offer them some money, maybe buy them a sandwich and a cup of tea.
If you are living close to someone that you know to be lonely and alone, I’d like to think that most of us would stop by from time to time for a chat; offer to fetch their shopping for them; maybe invite them around for a bite to eat.
In each instance, it is not just the right thing to do. It is also the human thing to do.
Yet that is not the way in which the UK demolition and construction industry works. The industry seldom does what’s right and is perfectly content to do what’s wrong in its relentless pursuit of profit. And, even though the industry is made up of millions of people, that doesn’t make it more human. It actually makes it less so. In many instances, it makes it utterly inhuman.
How else would you explain the industry’s insistence that its workers are required to live away from their family, friends, doctor, dentist and support network for prolonged periods, often in squalid conditions?
How else would you explain why an honest week’s work does not always result in an honest week’s pay; how individuals and companies can be penalised for contractual delays while those paying their wages often do so late and begrudgingly?
How else do you explain the fact that more than 500 industry workers take their own lives each year and yet the companies within the industry then have the temerity to proclaim their mental health awareness each and every time mental health becomes a hot topic.
How else would you explain companies within the sector shouting about their commitment to health and safety when many of them would gladly fire an individual for raising safety concerns and label them a trouble-maker for having done so?
It is as if the industry has followed the “example” set by politicians who say one thing and then do quite another; who tell us how to behave while behaving in the opposite way themselves; who set and impose rules they have no intention of following.
It is alleged that former Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he would “let the bodies pile high in their thousands” rather than impose another national lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic.
True or not, the thought that he could have made such a statement marked him not as the lovable buffoon but as uncaring, cold and inhuman.
Horrific though they were, however, those were just words.
By its actions and its inactions, the UK construction industry is itself letting the bodies pile high. And it will continue to do, so as long as the profits pile higher still.