July/August 2014 – Training & Recruitment
Poor health and safety and a macho culture:
both issues for perennial debate in the construction industry. Will we ever see an
accident-free industry in which everybody treats one another with the utmost respect and consideration?
Of course not; that’s a pipe-dream. But we can
work towards reducing these problems to negligible proportions.
Both are discussed in this month’s magazine.
The scaffolders’ trade association, the NASC, is proud to report that none of its members’ employees was killed at work last year. Is that really something to shout about? Well, yes. In an industry that’s all about working at height on temporary structures, that is an achievement. Even more impressive is the fact that industry initiatives mean that falls from height aren’t even the main cause of accidents in scaffolding any more.
Attracting more women into the construction industry is another challenge that is being met head-on. As we see in our feature on p26, women are more likely to choose construction as a career these days, albeit mostly in design and engineering roles. The fact that they tend to be less well-paid than men seems damning until you realise their average age might also be younger because, until recently, hardly any would have considered this career path.
Certainly, there’s a long way to go. But look how far we’ve come already.
Features
Site Report
Training & Recruitment
Concrete
Road Maintenance
Scaffolding
Plant
Construction Index Raceday 2014