April 2015 - Demolition
It’s great to see a major contractor challenging the old stereotype of construction as loutish and intolerant. But I’m not sure that distributing multi-coloured bootlaces is going to help much.
Lend Lease has sent out the rainbow-coloured laces in support of Stonewall, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) equality charity (see p5).
Wouldn’t it be great if everybody were open-minded and shared the same enlightened attitudes?Unfortunately, they’re not; there are some very ignorant, bigoted, stupid and spiteful people out there and you only need to visit “The Builders Craic” Facebook page to see the sort of mentality that persists on UK construction sites.
Major contractors like Lend Lease can and do take a zero-tolerance approach to this behaviour. As a result their sites are probably among the safest and most secure in the UK.
But their sites are not the problem. The majority of UK construction workers are employed on small sites by small one-man-band contractors. That’s where the problem lies, and no quantity of rainbow laces is going to make the slightest difference.
David Taylor
Editor
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