As a plumber of 27 years, I have seen much on site and one thing that I can’t overlook is the general blind eye turned to alcohol misuse.
If you look through any of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) data, you’ll find little relating to alcohol – only a brief mention. This is despite masses of experiential data to the contrary. I have seen with my own eyes men in charge of young apprentices who are too drunk to stand or hold tools, let alone lead the young people they oversee. This is a far cry from my own apprenticeship where, if we went to the pub at lunchtime we were instantly dismissed. My Journeymen (the men who lead you through an apprenticeship) were role models of what not just tradesmen were expected to be, but what men were supposed to be. They led by example.
If I cause an accident and hit a pedestrian with my car, one of the first things that will happen is that I will be breathalysed. I can assure you that should this same accident take place on a construction site, I will never be breathalysed, and it will be marked in the accident book as “struck by a moving vehicle”.
I have asked the HSE on various occasions to act on this, but to no avail.
Most construction companies will ignore alcohol and drug issues because they seem ‘too big’ to deal with – so even though they may say they’re good on safety, that isn’t necessarily the case when it comes to alcohol and drugs.
Having come back into the trade after a time abroad, I only really started to notice the general blind eye turned to alcohol misuse when working on larger commercial sites, where men work away for weeks at a time. With nothing to do at night they mostly – though not always – congregate in the pub after their shift. My experience was that some guys, who would only have to show face on Friday for two hours between 7-9am, would come in still drunk from the night before, and then they’d clock off for the weekend. Come 9am they’d jump in their cars and drive two or three hours home, and we’d pay them for their time. So not only were they drunk at work, they drove home drunk, and we paid them for it! Should they cause an accident, they’re not only drink-driving, but, as they’re still getting paid by us for their drive home, they are also technically drunk at work.
When I raised this as an issue, I became the site ‘bad guy’. Many of the management weren’t appreciative of my point, which presented a problem – they’d recently promoted me to Health and Safety Supervisor on three sites. I was moved to another site, given a pay rise, and only had to work three days a week. After wandering around for a couple of days, the site agent laughingly said: “You know you’re only here because they don’t know what to do with you”.
Thankfully, not all sites were in this condition, and many people agreed with me, but they knew I was fighting a losing battle. I have raised the issue of the drinking culture on plumbing sites with the Scottish first minister, my local MSP, my local MP, and with the Home Secretary. None of them have taken action, despite the fact that according to the HSE statistics there were over 600,000 accidents at work and 142 people lost their lives last year. I personally feel that, in many cases, this is avoidable.
On an individual, level if you find yourself struggling with your drinking, you can seek help. On a broader level, the construction industry and the Health and Safety professionals working in it really need to start looking at addressing this drinking culture at its core. All too often, when faced with a member of staff who is struggling with their drinking, the answer seems to be to fire them rather than make a change or offer support. Should this come to a tribunal, the employer may well find themselves at fault.
We live in a world where the catchphrase is “be kind”, and sacking someone for their drinking only allows them to go to another site and start over again in the same destructive pattern. We need better systems in place to help those who are struggling, to protect site workers and to ensure alcohol- and drug-related accidents at work are addressed properly – not swept under the rug.
