People Before Profit have received this from a building worker whose personal circumstances mean his family is at high risk. This is a complete violation of the Roadmap for Reopening, which says construction should restart on May 18th. It is also possibly an attempt to avoid the Return to Work Safely Protocol
“I hope you can help shine a light on the issue I have, as you have done so well during this pandemic. I have been up all night and most nights this week pondering this email so hopefully you can help.
I work in for a large construction company and we are working on a project in Lexlip, the biggest construction job currently under way in the state. Last Friday we got a call to say everyone is back to work on Tuesday and a letter was forwarded for our travel which detailed we were “essential maintenance staff” required for the maintenance of the manufacturing plant which is completely closed and non-operational currently. We are constructing a new plant and not maintaining anything, we are not on the main campus but on the fields out the back – pouring concrete and digging foundations.
It is not essential work, as the company had tried to get the project classified as essential by the government multiple times but failed. Minor things have changed on site since the lockdown but these will have little affect with the scale of the project if the virus breaks out again which it did before lockdown with multiple clusters.
These changes according to the project managers were completed to get us back up and running in line with the CIF document – CIF document is complete lip service and doesn’t deal with the real world situations, they are completely disconnected from the day to day site activities. Currently this week there are less than 100 on site, starting next Monday a week before restrictions are being lifted there will be 400/600 per day.
For example, yesterday I was changing before heading onto site in a drying room/dressing room which is a 20ft container and there was 9 other lads in the container at the same time.
Also to allow me back to work I now have to leave the kids with my cocooning parents. I did raise this with the people in charge and I was pretty much told if I’m not in to do my job they will find others to do it. I understand it is safe enough for many out on site to work away at a social distance but for a good few who are office based on site this is not the case.
Currently there are 40 plus people, 4 to a 20ft Portacabin for 10 hours a day. Desks facing each other with no 2m distance between people. Many of these can and have been working from home and doing their full job every day for the last weeks but now everyone has been told to get back to site. The question on working from home where possible as per government guides was raised with management and the answer was that doesn’t apply to us and why don’t people listen get back to site.
How are these companies getting away with this type of behaviour? There is blatant disregard for the restrictions and a complete blind eye is being taken on it by government and the local Gardai. This whole situation is very concerning as it shows the big companies don’t care about the people but instead the bottom line. I hope you can raise this so it can be brought to the attention of the powers that be. For obvious reasons I cannot be named as we have been warned any reporting to press or government will lead to straight dismissal. Please help me and many others on this site been given no option but to work!”