Shut The Sites IWMD Body Bag Protest

At 8:30am this morning, building workers delivered body bags to the London Headquarters of the construction firm MACE . The symbolic action was carried out by the Shut The Sites campaign protesting against the reopening of non-essential construction projects and the watering down of official social distancing advice to allow workers on building sites to work in close proximity for 15 minutes at a time, which they argue will increase transmission of coronavirus and lead to deaths of workers and their family members. Social distancing was applied throughout the protest by the electrician, bricklayer, engineer, carpenter and union safety rep involved.  

The reopening of non-essential construction has caused outrage on the sites and has only been made possible because the official UK government guidelines for the building industry has explicitly watered down social distancing rules. Standard Operating Procedures have been written by the Construction Leadership Council (CLC), a body comprising major contractors and chaired by Nadhim Zahawi MP, government minister for Business and Industry. 

MACE were chosen for the protest as Mark Reynolds, MACE CEO sits on the Construction Leadership Council and has reopened non-essential projects including luxury flats, despite originally describing the situation on MACE projects as:

"not compliant with Public Health England requirements... There is no way we can continue with the normal production rates [with] the two metre social distancing requirements” 

There has been an outpouring of anger on social media and the construction trade press, which has almost universally condemned the new guidelines for effectively providing a massive loophole for greedy employers to force workers back onto unsafe building sites. However, because of the long history of victimization and blacklisting those prepared to stand up for safety on building sites, concerned workers are often too scared to complain publicly. An electrician on a MACE project in Central London has been sacked for tweeting about the lack of social distancing on the site.  

A spokesperson for Shut The Sites, Dan Dobson said "Construction workers lives are still being unnecessarily put at risk from the watererd down Construction Leadership Councils 'Site Operating Procedures'. Contractors are already talking about extended site hours with weekend working coming up to bring delayed project back on programme, yet we are still within the Government enforced lockdown with hundreds of thousands of workers on site today. We fear that without a closure of all non critical works and a scheme to pay every worker, we will see a large number of construction workers added to the Covid-19 fatality figures."

An electrician from Manchester, Eddie Current said: "I can't leave my flat to sit on a bench in the local park with my daughter without the police threatening to fine me, at the same time as being forced to work within 2m of other workers for up to 15 minutes at a time without a mask, something isn't right here. I'm putting my families lives at risk every day that I go to site, I can't afford to not go as I have rent to pay, bills to pay and food to buy and I don't qualify for any of the Governments schemes so I have no choice. It's either take the risk or bringing the virus home to my family or risk starving and losing the roof over our heads." 

The MACE bodybag protest is just one of thousands of similar events taking place across the UK and worldwide on Tuesday 28th April as part of International Workers Memorial Day, whose global slogan is: "Mourn the Dead - Fight for the Living"  

For press interviews with the MACE bodybag protest organisers email: ShutTheSites@gmail.com 

For ongoing updates of memorials, protests and direct action taking place today search #IWMD20 #ShutTheSites on social media.

Note to Editors:

A full risk assessment was carried out before the protest which identified potential hazards and control measures were implemented to remove the risk

• Only 5 workers involved (many more wanted to attend)
• Event coincided with a trip to buy essential items
• 2m social distancing at all times
• Participants arrived by private transport rather than the packed tube 
• PPE worn

The protest with workers in full PPE could be deemed unlawful. The irony being that thousands of construction workers packed onto building sites across the UK is being actively encouraged by the government.

Shut The Sites Press Release

At 11am Sunday morning, flowers are laid to mourn construction workers who will lose their lives unnecessarily during the coronavirus pandemic. The respectful ceremony took place at the 'Building Worker' bronze statue at Tower Hill, which was commissioned as a memorial for all those who have died on building sites by the construction union UCATT (now a part of UNITE). The symbolic event was to mourn the dead, but also the fight for the living, and was carried out as part of the mass #ShutTheSites movement that has been trending on social media for the past 2 weeks, calling for non-essential building sites to be closed.

A new FaceBook page was launched on Saturday: https://www.facebook.com/ShutTheSites/

Shut The Sites issued the following statement:

"The Bronze Bulding Worker statue has for many years been a memorial for workers who have died on construction sites. Flowers have been respectfully laid today to mourn the dead. But in this time of crisis we should also fight to protect the living. None of us want to be here is 6 months time laying a bigger wreath to thousands of construction workers and their family members who may lose their lives unnecessarily. 

If construction workers are building a Nightingale Hospital or carrying out emergency maintenance on vital infrastructure, that's clearly crucial to fight this pandemic. But hundreds of thousands of building workers are being forced to continue working on building sites by greedy developers and employers in order to build luxury flats, hotels and powers stations that will not be completed for at least another 5 years. None of these are essential. 

Construction workers often travel on packed public transport or in shared minibuses, eat together in site canteens, live in huge site accommodation blocks and generally work in close proximity. No building worker in the country believes that construction can continue in any meaningful manner while complying with the 2m social distancing rules. Major contractors also have an appalling track record on health and safety; over decades they have sacked and blacklisted those prepared to stand up for the safety of their fellow workers. By keeping non-essential building sites open, the government and businesses are prioritizing profit above public health. 

No construction worker wants to put their families lives at risk or add more burden to the NHS. The UK government should immediately close all non-essential building sites. But they also need to ensure that every single worker, whether an employee, self-employed or an agency worker, is paid straight away. We need to protect our families, but we also need to put food on the table.

Rather than forcing construction workers to choose whether to protect their families or pay their bills, the government should suspend all mortgage, rent, interest payments and penalty clauses for the next 3 months (as has already been done in Italy) and pay everyone a universal basic income (as has occurred in Hong Kong and is being proposed by the Spanish government)".

#ShutTheSites    #PAYEveryworker     #StayHomeSaveLives

The memorial protest comes at the same time as the government issued new advice that 2m social distancing will no longer need to be strictly applied in the construction industry, but instead recommends that workers are kept two metres apart "as much as possible". This is in stark contrast to guidance from the Scottish Government, which has ordered the closure of all non-essential construction. 

Construction workers have been voicing their opposition to keeping non-essential building sites open on social media and a number of videos from across the UK have been collated and now appear on the attached video. 

Note to Editors:

A full risk assessment was carried out before the protest which identified potential hazards and control measures were implemented to remove the risk

• Only 2 workers involved to comply with government guidelines (many more wanted to attend)
• Event coincided with a trip to buy food
• 2m social distancing at all times
• Participants arrived by private transport rather than the packed tube 
• PPE worn

The protest with two construction workers in full PPE could be deemed unlawful. The irony being that thousands of construction workers packed onto building sites across the UK is being actively encouraged by the government.

Coronavirus Exposes Construction’s Bogus Self-Employment

Written by Dan Dobson for Tribune and published on 23.03.2020. LINK

More than a million workers in the construction industry are bogusly classified as self-employed. If the government wants them to stay home, it has to extend wage protections to cover them.

When the coronavirus crisis first reared its head, Britain’s government chose to downplay and minimise the scale of the threat. This weekend’s Sunday Times reporting made their unstated motive apparent: “protect the economy.” The flows of capital were not, under any circumstances, be obstructed.