Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

As you can tell by the title it has been yet another fun week at Queensland’s premier building site – Quality and safety are our number 1 priority.  It all started so well.  We were are back at ground level, the sun was shining (30C) and all was right with the world.

Then Frankipile (Piling Sub-contractor) showed up to trim back some of the out of tolerance secant piles that are protuding into the basement and things started to unravel.  Franki’s plan was to use a sub-contractor to trim back the piles.  Unfortunately this needed to happen so that we could build the stairs in the basement.  The original plan was to use hand tools to cut the piles back but we were concerned about noise and dust.  So Frankipile brought in a hydro-demo subbie to keep the dust down.  Now in the initial Sub-Sub-contractors Recce I asked 4 things:

•  Would they put up screens to stop the flying bits of blasted concrete going everywhere and clean up afterwards?
•  We are a Tier 1 site and therefore a Unon site so are you Enterprise Business Agreement (EBA) Compliant?
•   How much water are you going to produce?
•   Can they submit Safe Work Method Statements (SWMS)

The SWMS are a kind of method statement and and risk assessment in one.  When I and the safety manager checked them they were amongst the best we had seen, so we thought we were dealing with a professional outfit.  However…

1. What actually happened.  None of the guys were in the CFMEU union and the company was not EBA compliant so the Union delegate refused to let them on site until they were being paid at Tier 1 rates.  This took half a day to organise.
2. Quite simply you pay peanuts and you get monkeys.  After being cock-a-hoop that their  wages had double they tried to walk on site without PPE.  They hadn’t brought any PPE with them, any signage or crucially barriers.
3. Quite simply I have seen JDAMs make less mess than these idiots and the noise was absolutely deafening (think jet engine).  I managed to confine them to the lower basements but the Union delegate was doing back flips.
4. Water.  I had asked that they bring sediment sock with them to filter the water before it went down the spoon drains and into the drainage tanks but there was so much water and so much debris in the drains that they soon flooded the slabs.  Which soon ended up going through every penetration we had in the floor. Now Ozzies don’t do rain or water.  If they get wet they go home on full pay so this became a serious problem I had to solve.
5. Supervision.  Frankipile exercised no control over their sub-contractor so it became my problem.  I gave their Engineer a good gripping and told him to get his backside down to site with a crew ASAP to start cleaning up the mess. I had to get the electrician out to shut down several electrical boards and have spent the last 3 days with cleaners.  Smashed concerete was everywhere and I ended up filling 8 skip loads with the rubble from only 10 piles!  I have had to fight tooth and nail to get these skips exchanged as in military terms I am off the main effort.

Basment 6 – Electricity and Water a winning combination.

On Thursday the Union took the opportunity to do a snap inspection during clean-up and came mob handed (5 Union officials) to shut down the job.  The irony is they told the guys who were cleaning up to stop because it needed cleaning up.  The mess wasn’t the only thing wrong with the site but, it certainly didn’t help.  These union inspection always have their own agenda other than safety, which goes some way to explains why 5 delegates turned up.  I don’t know the full details but the Saturday shift has been cancelled (every cloud) – and my clean up was on the main effort.

So what have I learned:

• After spending 3 days clearing rubble and water, I no longer trust anyone.
• I should have thrown them off site in the morning.
• I will always check companies are EBA compliant before they arrive.
• I will insist that the sub-contractor provide a supervisor to manage their subbies – work will not start without one.
• I will stop work if it does not adhere to the SWMS.
• All sub-contractors are idiots unless verified otherwise.
• Clear everything with my comrade delegate (commissar).