Memorandum by Professor Linda Clarke,
University of Westminster
INTRODUCTION
Despite high levels of building activity, serious
skill shortages, and more stringent anti-discrimination measures,
the British construction industry remains an overwhelmingly white,
able-bodied male sector, albeit with a large proportion of migrants.
According to the Sector Skills Council, ConstructionSkills, nearly
50% of companies are experiencing difficulties in recruitment
and this has been shown to be particularly severe for housebuilding
(CITB-ConstructionSkills 2004; Clarke and Herrmann 2007). It is
estimated that between 2007 and 2011, the average annual requirement
for skilled manual workers in the Greater London area alone is
5,520, of whom—based on current levels of training provision—only
1,500 will be met by training supply (ConstructionSkills 2007).
At the same time, 11.7% of the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic
(BAME) working population in London is unemployed compared with
only 5.2% of the white population.
According to the Labour Force Survey, only 2.8%
of those employed in the construction industry are from ethnic
minority groups, though these constitute 7% of the total economically
active population (LFS 2005). This population is far larger in
London, where BAME groups make up 30% of the working population,
though only 14.4% of those in the construction sector and even
less in the building trades (12.4%). Figures are more pronounced
for women who make up only 10.2% nationally of those in the construction
sector and less than 1% of those in the manual trades (LFS 2005;
Briscoe 2006).
Analysis of the reasons for lack of diversity
in the construction sector cannot fail to ask the question why
employers, especially in the London area, are employing large
numbers of migrants rather than the local population—in
particularly women and those from BAME groups. This question is
particularly pertinent to T5, as it is set in an ethnically-diverse
area with pockets of unemployment, in particular youth, and concerted
efforts have been made from the start to implement a diversity
policy and to integrate local labour. Over the course of the project's
development however, these diversity-related measures have increasingly
lost their impetus and had but minimal impact in breaking down
the exclusivity of the building trades.
Our case study, T5, is one of Europe's largest
construction projects, estimated at start to require 5,000 workers
at peak (Experian 2006), though actually this was closer to 8,000.
The overall number of construction workers who have worked on
T5 is many times greater than this, as was indicated in the required
medical assessments carried out by the Occupational Health Centre
on well over one thousand workers per month in 2005 and about
400 health and safety inductions carried out per week. Only a
few female electricians and one or two women in other occupations
are employed in the operative workforce on T5. Explanations given
for this range from prejudice and negative perception of women
doing manual jobs, to lack of exposure of women in construction
jobs, poor advertising and insufficient encouragement in schools.
The limited success of women in finding apprenticeships or work
placements has only added to the vicious circle of exclusion and
self-exclusion. In terms of ethnicity, though exact figures were
not available, BAME groups were present on site and in the canteen,
but represented no more—and possibly less—than the
proportion found in construction in London.
When the project began in 2002, the client,
BAA, made a commitment to a Local Labour (LL) Strategy to ensure
that local people had the opportunity to benefit from the employment
generated by the new terminal (Experian 2006). The strategy covered:
education, training, employment, and support programme for local
businesses. With severe recruitment difficulties and skill gaps
anticipated at all levels, the benefits claimed for this strategy
included: improved travel-to-work patterns; the opportunity to
tackle social exclusion in some of the areas of relative deprivation
close to the airport; involvement and upskilling of ethnic minorities,
women, and other groups traditionally under-represented in the
construction industry; and cost savings for contractors from accommodation
allowances to workers residing outside the area (BAA website).
Despite the efforts made, only 150 have been employed on T5 over
the course of three years as a result of the scheme (employment
being defined as a minimum of 13 weeks), of whom 3% have been
women and 30% from BAME groups. This relatively small number of
local target group representatives on site and the few "success
stories" indicate that the LL scheme has not had a significant
impact, and that there has been a move away from the initial commitment
to local employment, in part attributable to insufficient resources
and in part to reported difficulties in recruiting skilled workers
among the local labour force. Skill shortages and lack of work
experience placements have been serious problems and the usual
practice has become to choose instead from the pool of existing
and known labour that moves from site to site and comes from all
over the country and from other parts of Europe.
Suppliers to T5 have therefore come to rely
on an itinerant workforce, both from outside London and—increasingly—from
different nationalities and geographic regions outside the UK.
For the employer, the advantages in employing migrant workers
include that such workers are willing to go where work is and
to work long hours while away from home. On T5 there are German,
Polish, Punjabi, Portuguese, Czech and Croatian gangs, working
alongside "travellers" from Wales, Scotland, the North
and the Midlands. Many live in the surrounding specially set up
caravan parks, in particular those employed on groundworks, shuttering,
civil engineering and infrastructure.
TRAINING PROBLEMS
The declining commitment to employing local
labour on T5—including women and those from BAME groups—appears,
therefore, to relate both to skill problems and to the hours of
work in place. Skill problems might have been expected to recede,
given that apprenticeships, training and work experience were
included in planning agreements, the project has extended over
nearly six years and considerable effort has been expended on
training. However, in practice, and especially in the cases of
apprenticeships and work placements, many fewer than initially
intended have been able to benefit from these. With the help of
the client, a skills centre was set up on T5 for apprentices in
traditional crafts (eg painting and decorating, drylining, bricklaying
and carpentry). This trains about 50 apprentices per year from
the local area, though originally it was intended to have a capacity
of 80, and is run by a major contractor which does not employ
on the project (Heathrow Employment Forum 2004). It is funded
by ConstructionSkills on the basis of National Vocational Level
Qualifications (NVQ) Level 2 completions.
Several colleges and training centres in the
vicinity have also received financial support from the client,
the British Airport Authority (BAA), and a training committee
has been set up set up with the Learning and Skills Council, BAA
and local colleges. For instance, 18 week training courses are,
offered and people from different backgrounds from the surrounding
areas can—in principle—enter into employment or acquire
a NVQ. In addition, language and numeracy courses are provided
on site if workers are there for long enough or, alternatively,
training is provided on a case-by-case basis. However, more specialist
occupations tend to be filled by experienced/ trained workers
from elsewhere. In addition to these training arrangements, Construction
Learning World was set up on T5 to accredit standards, coordinate
on-site assessment training (OSAT) and ensure any follow-up to
NVQ2 with a training provider, with a minimum of three months
and maximum of three years given to complete the NVQ.
Though apprenticeships are offered by employers
on T5, these tend to be few and far between. Explanations given
for this vary, from young people not being interested in training
to difficulties in finding work placements, as work is often carried
out by small companies who do not have the necessary mentors.
Health and safety and security considerations are also important,
it being highly unlikely for anyone under 18 to be deployed on
T5. Symptomatic of the low number of apprenticeships available
on T5 are those of a major contractor, employing at peak over
2,500, which currently has two apprentices and reported a ratio
of at best one apprentice for every 250 workers and at worst one
in 1,000! The indication is that there is an acute shortage of
places offered to those in training and seeking work experience
or apprenticeships. This makes entry for target groups and women
even more difficult, as apparent from Modern Apprenticeship figures,
with only 1% of those in 2000 from BAME groups (EOC 2004 and 2005).
Levels of training by firms in the construction industry generally
are anyway notoriously low, especially in London. For instance,
less than a third of London construction firms surveyed in 2005
were found to have training plans and only 30% of construction
workers were qualified to NVQ2 or above (London Assembly 2005).
It is increasingly difficult to find apprentice places and there
is a vast shortfall in supply.
In stark contrast to the relatively few construction
trainees to be found with firms and in particular on T5 is the
situation in surrounding Further Education (FE) colleges. Here
large numbers of construction trainees are to be found—mostly
locals, often women and from BAME groups—and even more seek
college places. Indeed one college visited which had received
support from BAA, estimated demand exceeded the current c300 trainee
capacity four-fold. 6% of the 285 construction trainees were women,
and 17% from BAME backgrounds. The college provides: five hours
per week training for 14-16 years olds from local schools; training
to NVQ1 for 16-19 year olds; and a one year course for a level
2 Intermediate Construction Award (not NVQ), which runs for 14-15
hours per week. No funding is available for level 3 NVQ and there
is little financial support for adults seeking to move to construction.
Trainers in this college considered that very few of the trainees
had any chance of working in the industry—let alone on nearby
T5!—because they were not able to obtain the necessary work
experience and thus to obtain NVQ 2 or 3.
To overcome some of these difficulties, ConstructionSkills
has now established programme-led apprenticeships whereby the
employer receives £2,000 to provide work experience for potential
apprentices seeking to achieve NVQ2. However, only 150 of these
are currently planned for the whole London area. Many local people
go to colleges to do construction courses in order to avoid unemployment,
to learn a trade and to develop a career in construction. However,
the link to work experience and employment is unclear and placements
are rare, those existing being often limited in scope. There are
far more women and those from BAME in FE colleges than on actual
sites. For instance in London a disproportionately high percentage
of those from BAME groups (35%) are in training (CITB-ConstructionSkills
2005). 9% of first year construction trainees in London are also
women, far higher proportions than found in construction employment
(CITB- ConstructionSkills 2005; Byrne 2005). The suggestion is
that there is no shortage of target group representatives seeking
to train and work in the industry.
RECRUITMENT AND
SKILLS PROBLEMS
Adding to the problems of a lack of link between
the college and workplace and an acute shortage of training and
work experience places with firms, is the appropriateness of the
training provision in place. The FE colleges and the T5 training
centre tend to train in traditional areas—bricklaying, carpentry,
plastering, tiling and plumbing. However, on large sites such
as T5 there are often different skill requirements, for instance
in the area of groundworks and in fitting out work. Firms interviewed
on T5 stressed the need for wider occupational profiles for each
area of activity, in particular in relation to general operative
work and carpentry. This "multi-skilling" was also seen
as facilitating greater mobility of labour and the relocation
of workers which should go together with a large directly employed
workforce. As it is, one major contractor estimated its labour
turnover to be unnecessarily high, at 35% in some cases and even
50% where there is high demand, in part because occupations are
too narrowly conceived and NVQs give only restricted ability to
extend experience. Groundworkers, for instance, should be able
to carry out steel-fixing, plant operation (cranes, forklifts
etc.), scaffolding, paving, drainage, banking, concreting and
concrete finishing. However, unlike their counterparts in Germany
or the Netherlands, British workers tend to be "single-skilled",
rather than trained and upskilled for a greater range of activities.
Recruitment methods on T5 are claimed to be
the same for all groups of workers regardless of origin or gender,
with selection criteria related to skills and security, including
a safer attitude to work. One firm interviewed made special efforts
to recruit local labour, including the use of the local employment
agency for T5, roadshows around local colleges, interviews, and
workplace assessments. In practice, however, each company has
its own way of recruiting, mainly word-of-mouth for manual jobs,
though the press and gangmasters are also used. Some companies
have their own agencies or agencies they work with, perhaps specialised
in bringing in Germans carpenters, Polish groundworkers or Portuguese
concretors. Such recruitment methods, especially informal methods
and the use of agencies, tend in themselves to entrench the predominance
of white males (Beck et al 2003; Steele and Sodhi 2006). Combined
with the particular skills required and the preference for work
experience over formal qualifications, these provide further obstacles
to entry for women and BAME. Indeed, research has shown that recruitment
methods need to be especially proactive to be successful in implementing
equal opportunities policies in construction (Michielsens et al
1997).
The large amount of existing and forthcoming
work in London, combined with severe skill shortages and lack
of appropriate training and work experience placements, have therefore
created a situation where the recruitment of migrant workers—available
quickly and possessing the necessary skills and experience—appears
to many stakeholders as justifiable. It was claimed too that if
training is provided by a company, there is the danger of "poaching"
by competitors, and therefore skilled migrants are preferred to
taking on apprentices. Also, some trades "run" in the
family, generation after generation, including among the itinerant
workforce.
On T5 systems are in place to facilitate recruitment
and to meet the important requirement that all those employed
are in possession of a Construction Skills Certificate. A CSCS
(Construction Skills Certification Scheme) test centre was set
up on the T5 site in 2004 by BAA, in order to provide more flexibility
than relying on an external system. It ensures that certain criteria
are met, including health and safety requirements. To meet these,
all operatives recruited to work on site have to pass a test,
which is completed on a computer and has to be repeated every
five years. At the T5 test centre, though there are translations
and interpreters are brought in to cover all languages, some problems
of understanding and of language are reported, as well as difficulties
for older workers to use a computer, contributing to a high—though
improving—failure rate. Normally three attempts to pass
the test are possible and each operative has to have a card within
28 days, with all cards being requested and checked at the general
one day induction, which itself helps to recognize gaps for which
training may be given. If workers are engaged for less than the
28 day period, there is a special dispensation, but there are
checks on people who come regularly, even for short periods. The
client partly bears the cost of the centre and provides translators,
though there is no infrastructure for people with special needs
or disabilities. CSCS is under ConstructionSkills, which assesses
and accredits training providers, though no direct training is
given except specialist. Currently about 95% of trades on T5 have
CSCS cards.
CSCS plays a critical role in registering skilled
workers in the industry and providing a degree of regulation not
hitherto present. It is, however, very much geared to those with
skills, though the eventual system is intended to recognize what
skills are needed as a means to develop these. For a trainee to
meet the requirements for obtaining a card, 500 hours experience
is necessary which, given the difficulties in obtaining, in particular
for those from local BAME groups and women, presents a further
obstacle to inclusion.
EMPLOYMENT CONDITIONS
T5 is exemplary in terms of employment conditions,
in particular in terms of the procurement guidelines for the project
which state that "wherever possible" there should be
direct employment (BAA 2004). In an industry where about 40% of
the workforce, or 700,000 workers out of 1.8 million, are classified
as "self-employed" (even though they may in all other
respects be "employed" by a definite employer), this
marks a clear departure from established practice (DTI 2006).
Most, but not all, workers are directly employed on T5 and there
is monitoring to ensure that those with "self-employed"
CIS4 (special construction industry tax scheme) cards are not
used and that any breach is reported. This does not mean that
work is not subcontracted out nor that temporary labour with agency
cards is not used, but firms report that 60-70% of their labour
requirement is met by employing directly.
Whilst the more stable employment on T5 is important
to encourage inclusion of the local diverse workforce and to training,
other employment conditions, in particular the long hours and
travel to work, clearly act as further obstacles. These conditions
are sometimes regarded as the very nature of the construction
work, going together with a long tradition of an itinerant and
highly mobile workforce. Site hours, which many work, are 7am
to 7pm on weekdays and 7am to 4pm on Saturdays, whilst the general
shift pattern established is 10 hours per day (8 on Friday). In
addition, despite working time being officially 48 hours per week,
overtime is normal and 50+ hours are very frequent. The Working
Time Directive opt out, allowing operatives to work more hours
than the stipulated 48, is generally applied, though hours worked
and rates are different for different trades. Added to this, T5
is difficult to get to—travelling can be two hours or more
per day—and workers can also wait up to half an hour to
get on to the site. To compensate for this travel time to site
in terms of pay, "locals" receive a travelling allowance,
though only for five days instead of the seven days for a "traveller".
Even for white collar workers employed for a 40 hour week this
travelling time can be a problem and pose difficulties to recruiting
personnel. It is therefore difficult to imagine many local people
with family responsibilities being able or prepared to work and
travel so many hours and in this sense the site appears to be
structured for travellers and migrants. For women, in particular,
such conditions already compound what has been described as greater
work-life interference in construction (Dainty and Baglihole 2006;
Lingard and Francis 2006).
Compounding differences between "local"
and "travellers" pay is the fact that operatives, even
those doing similar work and of the same age, skills and work
experience, are taken on at different rates, for example in scaffolding,
though there have been attempts to make agreements on pay harmonisation.
A major problem in this respect is the lower wages received by
East Europeans, some multi-skilled German workers, and workers
of other origin. Another problem has been that staff supervisors
may earn less than those they supervise. The client does, however,
make frequent checks on pay through an auditor to help ensure
that there is a stable pay environment on T5 for everybody, with
a no-poaching policy operating on site for suppliers.
CONCLUSIONS
There have been significant efforts made on
T5, in particular by BAA, to encourage a more diverse workforce
and to employ and train local labour. In terms of training, support
has been given to local colleges and to setting up a special training
centre, as well as to putting in place OSAT. Skills of the workforce
have been registered and monitored through the CSCS and BAA Passport
requirements, and Learning World offers a potential means to identify
skill needs and further develop skills. In terms of employment,
the implementation of the local labour strategy has opened a door
to the local labour force to be employed on the site and in construction.
T5 serves as an example of good employment practices, through
the policy of direct employment, which has been extremely successful
in showing that there is an alternative to casual employment in
construction. The policy has introduced a potential for inclusion,
a pioneering attempt to stabilise and regularise the construction
workforce. It has been consolidated through the careful enforcement
of collective agreements and the important role of the unions
on site in monitoring this, in ensuring employee involvement and
participation in the project and in maintaining good industrial
relations. And the image of construction as unsafe and unhealthy
has to a considerable extent been broken.
These are the achievements of T5. The results
in terms of diversity and the employment and training of local
labour are in many respects disappointing. The apprentice record
at, on the most optimistic estimate, no more than 1% of the workforce
is poor and the number of apprentice places offered at the project
training centre is anyway too small to make a significant impact.
Few if any of the many hundred construction trainees in surrounding
colleges, who well represent London's ethnic minority population
and include also women, have been able to work in construction,
let alone on T5. The 150 people brought into employment through
the local labour scheme also only represent a tiny proportion
of the many thousands who have worked on the site. Those employed
have instead increasingly been recruited from all over Britain
and from elsewhere in Europe, representing a workforce which—though
diverse—is predominantly white able-bodied male. As a result,
the local labour force (discounting specially recruited migrants)
has become a dwindling minority and "travellers" the
overwhelming majority.
What have been the obstacles to a more inclusive
and local labour force on T5? One of the most obvious is the lack
of work experience available and placements, allowing those from
local colleges to gain practical skills in construction in order
to be recognised as skilled workers. Another is the training actually
on offer, almost exclusively confined to traditional trades, often
narrow and devoted to single skills, and more geared to domestic
construction work than to the modern construction methods deployed
on sites such as T5. A third is the means of recruitment, relying
almost entirely on agencies which tend to target a traditional
white male and migrant workforce rather than local and diverse
labour. And a final obstacle is the site working hours and shift
patterns set up, which, coupled with long journey to work times,
make the working day not only unhealthily long but also almost
impossible for any but travellers and migrants prepared to sign
the WTD opt out and work intensively. This means the site is almost
structured to suit an itinerant rather than a local workforce,
an aspect which is then supported through the incentives given
to travellers in the pay structure.
These obstacles are not insurmountable. Any
similar scheme could set up special training projects on site
to provide the necessary work experience, set fixed targets for
apprentice places and work placements, and establish formal links
with colleges, the ConstructionSkills and training providers.
Training could be longer and broader, more on the German or Dutch
model, and catering for the increasingly "multi-skilled"
nature of such activities as carpentry and groundworks. And the
future training and skills needs of the workforce could be developed.
Recruitment could be carefully targeted. Site hours and shift
patterns could be structured from the beginning of the project
to be inclusive and in conformity with Working Time Regulations.
However, at present, there is little sign that such conditions
are being put in place for the Olympic and other London developments.
18 December 2007
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