Chain subcontracting and the lack of prevention planning in the project stage are two of the main reasons for work accidents in the construction sector, according to a study developed by researchers of the University of Granada in collaboration with the University of Malaga. The project, which has been focused on the analysis of the in the transport infrastructure works of the Ministry for Public Works in Andalusia between August of 2001 and January of 2002, also points out workers and site managers´ lack of training as regards safety and the influx of immigrants in construction works as some of the elements that are helping construction to be at the present time the sector where there is a higher number of accidents per year, about 60,000 at a world level.
To come to these conclusions, the team of scientists has visited 53 construction sites and has polled workers, site managers, subcontractors and safety and health coordinators. Through these interviews, they have tried to analyse the implementation of Royal Decree 1627/97 that establishes the minimum safety and health provisions that must be applied in construction, such as training, prevention measures, subcontracting control, the creation of prevention measures for immigrant workers who not only do not know the language, but many of the tools they use, and the presence of safety coordinators since the beginning of the works.
Most of these aspects present deficiencies in the works visited. As regards preventive training, the UGR researcher says that workers have not been trained in this field and there are not appropriate proceedings to instil a preventive culture. In this sense, she also refers to site managers, who on most cases have not received either an appropriate training, “which does not help to improve safety conditions in construction works“, Menéndez and Rubio maintain, after saying that “this is a clear example of the need to include once and for all prevention in the syllabus of technique degrees as regards construction”.
As regards safety and health measures in construction works, certain deficiencies have also been observed that, according to the project, could be solved carrying out the following actions: an official study of construction equipment, real compliance of the regulation on prevention of occupational risks and adaptation of individual protection equipments.
The consequences of subcontracting
Subcontracting is other of the subjects treated in the research work as a cause for industrial accidents. The data obtained indicate that most construction works have percentages above 50 per cent and with different levels. “This not only involves that prevention fade away in the chain that transfers work responsibility from one to other, but it also helps to promote labour precariousness. We do not mean that subcontracting itself is a problem, as we know that it is indispensable in a system tending to specialization, but that the problem is the way it is taking place”, the supervisor of the project points out.
But these are not the only factors analysed in the work recently published in the journal of the Ministry of Public Works. The growing presence of immigrant workers who do not know the language and, on many occasions, have never worked on the construction sector, and the indifference of site managers towards the figure of the safety coordinator are other elements that show “the need to provide works with more safety resources and raise involved agents´ awareness, from promoters to workers, about the need to take preventive measures to avoid that construction continues being the sector with a higher number of accidents”.
The conclusions of this research work and the last industrial accidents that have occurred in the province –fifteen up to now this year– reveal that construction safety still is a failed subject for the Spanish system, with figures much higher than those of other countries of the European Union, despite having common regulation.
Reference:
Prof Antonio Menéndez Ondina
Professor Mª Carmen Rubio Gámez
Dpt. Civil Engineering.
Phone number: 958 248 953 / 958 249 445
E-mail: aondina@ugr.es / mcrubio@ugr.es
