SIPTU reaction to new safety deal strengthens agreement

Arguably, the most notable development in the Construction Safety Partnership's safety plan for the next three years was its enthusiastic welcome by SIPTU.

The plan on improving safety, health and welfare in the construction industry has been described by SIPTU construction branch secretary, Mr Eric Fleming, as offering "major improvements".

According to Mr Fleming, the three-month partnership between the Construction Industry Federation, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, the Health and Safety Authority, FAS and representatives from the Departments of Finance, the Environment and Local Government, and Enterprise, Trade and Employment has shown that employers and unions can work together to improve health and safety in the construction industry.

The partnership came about to address deaths and injuries in the industry. For SIPTU one of the highlights is that it becomes mandatory for a workers' representative to be nominated for all building sites with more than 20 workers on site at any one time. The employer also nominates a safety officer. "At the moment the law says you can do this and you can do that. But this would be a must," says Mr Fleming.

The safety representative and the company officer are to be given training.

"Now it's hoped that the training will be identical training. They'll both do the training. This is very much what we pursued. In other words, they're coming back to the site singing from the one hymn sheet," he says.

SIPTU welcomes the appointment of two facilitators, one each from the employers and workers. They will visit building sites seeking to encourage the new safety structure. "So they'll be leaving sites with a structure behind and the health and safety representative in place," he says.

"The other thing that was agreed upon is that everyone in the industry - everybody, all 160,000 - have to have a one-day mandatory safety course. Each person that does that course actually has to walk away with a certification card and information from that card is put on a database.

"In theory, what should happen is when the person appears for work they should be asked for their Safe Pass card. Now it's going to take a couple of years to get this right because there are so many people involved, but the principle has been accepted. After four years, you have to get a renewed course. So this is a rolling thing. It goes on forever. It pulls our industry up."

SIPTU accepts it didn't get everything it wanted: "Ultimately, and I'll make no secret of this, our desire was that we would have a network of health and safety auditors, our own mini-inspectors, but we didn't win that. We didn't secure that. But what we did secure was the right to sit down and look at the current auditing. That's as much as the employers would give us."

Despite recent progress, Mr Fleming remains apprehensive that following recent advances, people "will rest on their laurels".

And he is unhappy with the low levels of court fines. Courts need to "reflect a lot more adequately the dreadful situation that's taking place out there in the industry.

"They're [the courts] not hitting them for the maximum, which is only £1,500 (#1,905). In most cases, they come in at around £800 if the maximum was due. . . But the penalties are far too low and we're looking for a massive increase in penalties immediately."

He says courts are no deterrent to certain builders at the moment and that injunctions are the best way to solve the problem.

"Once the word gets out that there's been a site closure and they're gone for a week, all the other sites in the area all jump to it."

jmarms@irish-times.ie