Construction industry told to improve safety: ‘Put people ahead of price’

The construction industry is being called out for not doing enough to prevent deaths and injuries on the job.

Last Friday five men were badly hurt in a gas explosion at an Auckland building site, and are still being treated in the burns unit at Middlemore Hospital. Earlier this week another man died after an accident on a work site in Mt Eden.

Now WorkSafe, the Council of Trade Unions and an industry health and safety group have put out a joint appeal for companies to do better.

WorkSafe chief executive Phil Parkes said they are fed up with prosecuting safety offenders and not seeing lasting change.

WorkSafe has made 113 prosecutions in the last four years and served thousands of improvement notices, he said.

“The statistics are largely flat. We’ve seen minor improvements in the construction industry but nowhere near what we would expect.

“There needs to be a significant change in the way the construction industry looks after its people. We’ve seen the same practice over and over again, and too many people are dying through a lack of care.”

The new strategy at WorkSafe involves casting the net far wider within the industry.

WorkSafe’s Phil Parkes.
Photo: WorkSafe

“What we’re saying is everybody who has influence and control over how construction work is done needs to change the way they do their business.”

Instead of relying mainly on site visits, Parkes said that safety groups must change their approach to dealing with the entire chain.

“In practice it means instead of just going to construction sites and dealing with the workers and their supervisors who are actually suffering the harm, we’re saying that everybody from the subcontractor, the main contractor, all the way up to the client that commissions the building or the piece of infrastructure that’s being built, needs to put people ahead of price.

“What we see time and time again is people further up the supply chain wanting their project done cheap and when they want their product done cheap, that means corners get cut.

“Every time we see this we see risk exported down the supply chain and we see vulnerable workers being harmed or killed at work.”

People must come before price, said WorkSafe’s chief executive.
Photo: RNZ / Nick Monro

Parkes admits that costs in the industry are rising to record highs due to the pandemic, inflation war in Ukraine and other issues, but worker safety must remain paramount.

“There’s huge pressure all the way across the construction industry. I’m not saying it’s easy.

“But if people are willing to put price saving or making a profit ahead of caring for people, that’s a breach of the law, it’s as simple as that.”

Parkes said all construction companies are not the same but it’s important to raise standards across the board.

“As with all industries there are some really good companies out there.

“There are lots of companies in the middle who want to do a good thing but they just are driven by profit-seeking or driven by cost pressures to cut corners, and then of course there are those handful of companies that just don’t care, that exploit their workers and do it knowingly and deliberately.”

“We want to influence all of those companies to do better.”

Events like last week’s explosion at an Auckland construction site require closer scrutiny, experts said.
Photo: RNZ / Felix Walton

Construction Health and Safety also joined with WorkSafe and the Council of Trade Unions to appeal for companies to do better.

Its chief executive Chris Alderson said the current situation is dire.

“On average there’s around about seven to 10 fatalities a year within construction, so obviously every single one of those is too many.

“But unfortunately though, construction’s an industry with fairly low barriers to entry, so you and I could probably start a construction company tomorrow.”

Alderson said the focus has to shift from getting the job done as cheaply or as fast as possible.