Sir, - I have no difficulty in accepting the last paragraph of Mr Jack Butler's letter (September 22nd). SIPTU has believed for a long time that the primary way to substantially improve health and safety in the construction industry is through a bipartisan approach between employers and workers.
To say that the point of the whole debate on building site safety centres on the notion of wholesale non-co-operation by workers is a total nonsense. It is an issue but it is not the central point. You can't shift the blame from the main culprits, the professional and building employers. If they don't like it, hard luck; if the cap fits they will have to wear it.
By and large, deaths and injuries in this industry are caused by the gross negligence of employers and sub-contractors alike. There are few exceptions and it is our experience that many of the so-called good employers are not great at all!
That's why it doesn't help to have an ineffective Minister spouting that the industry is getting the message and that we are finally making progress. You just have to listen to Mr Liam Kelleher of the Construction Industry Federation prattling on with his dubious statistics to know that this is simply not true.
Anyone refusing to conform with best safety practice on sites both to their own detriment and that of their colleagues should be subject to rigorous discipline. It's up to builders to manage their own safety regimes on sites. However, it is our experience that most builders don't consider the management of safety procedure as high a priority as other aspects of management, particularly making profits and working to dangerous deadlines.
Building workers, like all species on this globe, are geared towards self-preservation and with few exceptions don't want to die or be seriously maimed in the course of their employment.
Mr John Butler would do better to recognise that the core of this problem lies in a lack of education and a fear among many building workers of bucking the tight schedules which they are forced to work under.
Finally, according to leading experts in the field, 50 per cent of accidents that occur are due to poor management followed by 25 per cent due to poor head office planning/management and fewer than 25 per cent due to employees. - Yours, etc.,
Eric Fleming, Branch Secretary, Construction & Allied Trades Branch, SIPTU, Liberty Hall, Dublin 1.