Living on the Construction Site: Paraguayan Construction Workers in Buenos Aires

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Álvaro del Águila
Keyword(s):  
Construction Industry ◽  
Metropolitan Area ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Buenos Aires ◽  
Labor Relations ◽  
Construction Workers ◽  
Construction Site ◽  
Construction Sites ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork

Argentine enterprises subsume Paraguayan migrant workers into the construction industry in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area, subordinating them to the demands of production by temporarily housing them on the construction sites themselves. Ethnographic fieldwork carried out on various construction sites between 2006 and 2015 shows how this practice overlaps with wider processes of global transformation in labor relations. The lodging of workers on construction sites is an increasingly widespread strategy for capitalist entrepreneurs to exploit the migrant workforce even further. Las empresas argentinas han incorporado a los trabajadores migrantes paraguayos a la industria de la construcción en el área metropolitana de Buenos Aires y los han subordinado a las exigencias de la producción, alojándolos temporalmente en las obras mismas. Un trabajo de campo etnográfico realizado en varias obras entre 2006 y 2015 muestra cómo dicha práctica se entrelaza con procesos más amplios en la transformación de las relaciones laborales a nivel global. El alojamiento de los trabajadores en las obras es una estrategia cada vez más extendida para que los empresarios capitalistas puedan explotar la mano de obra migrante aún más de lo que ya hacen.

scholarly journals Risk Perception in the Construction Industry: Differences Between Italian and Migrant Workers Before and After a Targeted Training Intervention

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-71
Author(s):  
Federico Ricci ◽  
Giulia Bravo ◽  
Alberto Modenese ◽  
Fabrizio De Pasquale ◽  
Davide Ferrari ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Risk Perception ◽  
Construction Industry ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Construction Workers ◽  
Construction Sites ◽  
Visual Tool ◽  
Occupational Risks ◽  
Linguistic Barriers ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Difference

We developed a visual tool to assess risk perception for a sample of male construction workers (forty Italian and twenty-eight immigrant workers), just before and after a sixteen-hour training course. The questionnaire included photographs of real construction sites, and workers were instructed to select pictograms representing the occupational risks present in each photograph. Points were awarded for correctly identifying any risks that were present, and points were deducted for failing to identify risks that were present or identifying risks that were not present. We found: (1) Before the course, risk perception was significantly lower in immigrants compared to Italians ( p < .001); (2) risk perception improved significantly ( p < .001) among all workers tested; and (3) after the training, the difference in risk perception between Italians and immigrants was no longer statistically significant ( p = .1086). Although the sample size was relatively small, the results suggest that the training is effective and may reduce the degree to which cultural and linguistic barriers hinder risk perception. Moreover, the use of images and pictograms instead of words to evaluate risk perception could also be applied to nonconstruction workplaces.

scholarly journals The Sustainability of Health and Safety on Construction Sites in Zamfara State

2018 ◽  
Vol 65 ◽  
pp. 03003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ismaila Oladunni Muhammed ◽  
Adegbenga Raphael Ashiru
Keyword(s):  
Construction Industry ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Construction Workers ◽  
Annual Reports ◽  
Construction Site ◽  
Construction Sites ◽  
Infrastructural Development ◽  
State Construction ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Descriptive Statistical Analysis

Construction industry has been attributed to be the growth of Nigerian economic and infrastructural development. Annual reports show that consistent accidents on construction sites in Zamfara State has affected substantial number of workers as they become temporarily or permanently disabled, thereby making many construction sites a death trap. It is as a result of high construction site accident currently experiencing in Zamfara state that this research was carried out to appraise the sustainability of health and safety of construction workers on sites. Subsequently, SPSS Version 20 was used to analyse descriptive statistical analysis. Furthermore, the findings highlighted that the performance and output of construction workers on construction sites depends on proper practice of health and safety. The research findings also recommended ways to enhance employers and employee’s compliance to existing laws guiding health and safety on Zamfara State construction sites.

scholarly journals The Effects of Multi-Sociodemographic Characteristics of Construction Sites Personnel on Perceptions of Safety Climate-Influencing Factors: The Construction Industry in Saudi Arabia

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 1674
Author(s):  
Ibrahim Mosly ◽  
Anas A. Makki
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Construction Industry ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Safety Climate ◽  
Influencing Factor ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Sociodemographic Characteristics ◽  
Construction Site ◽  
Construction Sites ◽  
Logistic Regression Method

The construction industry in Saudi Arabia relies prominently on migrant workers of multi-sociodemographic characteristics with different perceptions of a safety climate. The exploration of the perceptions regarding the safety climate among various groups of migrant workers may help identify effective means of improving safety levels at construction sites in Saudi Arabia. This study aimed to examine the effects of multi-sociodemographic characteristics of construction site personnel on their perceptions of the factors that influence the safety climate at construction sites in Saudi Arabia. Data were collected from 401 construction site workers, employed at ongoing construction project sites in Saudi Arabia, using a designed questionnaire. A generalized, linear model approach was applied, using the single ordinal logistic regression method, to analyze the collected data. The results revealed the significant sets of sociodemographic characteristics and their associated subgroups that had significant effects on the perception of importance assigned to each safety climate-influencing factor. These findings provide a better understanding of the views of construction site personnel on the safety climate and can assist construction industry decision-makers, safety policy designers, government agencies, and stakeholders when designing better-targeted enhancement plans and strategies to improve the safety climate of construction sites, based on the sociodemographic makeup of the personnel at each construction site.

scholarly journals Sustainable Ship Loading Planning for Prefabricated Products in the Construction Industry

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (21) ◽  
pp. 8905
Author(s):  
Wen Yi ◽  
Robyn Phipps ◽  
Hans Wang
Keyword(s):  
Construction Industry ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Transportation Cost ◽  
Sustainable Transportation ◽  
Construction Site ◽  
Integer Optimization ◽  
Construction Sites ◽  
Capacity Limits ◽  
Proposed Model

This paper focuses on sustainable transportation of prefab products from factories to construction sites by ship. Since the transportation cost for all the prefab products of a construction site is mainly dependent on the number of cargo holds used on ships, a loading plan for prefab products that minimizes the number of holds required is highly desirable. This paper is therefore devoted to the development of an optimal loading plan that decides which prefab products are loaded into each cargo hold and how to pack these prefab products into the holds so that as few holds as possible are used. We formulate the problem as a large-scale integer optimization model whose objective function is to minimize the total number of cargo holds used and whose constraints represent the cargo hold capacity limits. We develop a heuristic to solve the problem and obtain a high-quality solution. We have tested the model and algorithm on a case study that includes 20 prefab products. We find that different cargo holds carry prefab products that have quite different densities. Moreover, the orientations of many prefab products are different from their default orientations. The results demonstrate the applicability of the proposed model and algorithm.

scholarly journals “The lottery of my life”: Migration trajectories and the production of precarity among Bangladeshi migrant workers in Singapore's construction industry

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grace Baey ◽  
Brenda S. A. Yeoh
Keyword(s):  
Labor Markets ◽  
Construction Industry ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Labor Migration ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Construction Workers ◽  
Host Society ◽  
Precarious Employment ◽  
Employment Conditions ◽  
Migration Industry

Within the scholarship on precarity, low-waged contract-based migrants are recognized as centrally implicated in precarious employment conditions at the bottom of neoliberal capitalist labor markets. Precarity as a socially corrosive condition stems from both the multiple insecurities of the workplace as disposable labor, and a sense of deportability as migrant subjects with marginal socio-legal status in the host society. Our study of Bangladeshi construction workers in Singapore contributes to refining understandings of precarity by approaching labor migration as a cumulative, intensively mediated process, whereby risks and vulnerabilities are compounded across different sites in migrants’ trajectories, even as they enact themselves as mobile, aspiring subjects. As a condition-in-the-making, precarity is experienced and compounded, through a continuum beginning in pre-migration indebtedness, multiplying through entanglements with the migration industry, and manifesting in workplace vulnerabilities at destination. It is most finely balanced when predictability and planning yield to arbitrary hope.

scholarly journals Tension between Productivity and Respect for People in Construction

2020 ◽  
Vol 312 ◽  
pp. 05005
Author(s):  
Lesiba George Mollo ◽  
Fidelis Emuze ◽  
Nicholus Sishuba
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Construction Industry ◽  
Management System ◽  
Ethical Reasoning ◽  
Construction Site ◽  
Construction Sites ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
Major Factors ◽  
Structured Questionnaire

Productivity in the construction industry is declining in real-time. The decline in productivity is a source of worry for practitioners and researchers. The purpose of this paper is to ascertain major factors influencing productivity in relation to the notion of respects for people (RFP) in construction. The reviewed literature influences the semi-structured questionnaire used to survey construction professionals in Johannesburg, South Africa. The results reaffirm the tension productivity increment and the enhancement of RfP as both ideas appear to be moving in opposite directions on a typical construction site. It was discovered that respect for workers on a construction site is a major concern. The paper argues that ethical reasoning affects productivity. Therefore, an appropriate management system is required to improve the workers' perception of productivity and RfP working on construction sites.

Organized Crime in the Construction Industry

1977 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 304-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph C. Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Construction Industry ◽  
Organized Crime ◽  
Construction Site ◽  
Construction Sites ◽  
Heavy Equipment ◽  
Societal Changes

The theft of heavy equipment from construction sites is an organized, systematic, criminal operation, encouraged and sustained by contractors within the construction industry and designed to enrich burglars, illicit salesmen, and seemingly legitimate businessmen. From information gathered directly from those affected and involved, the article shows how the system of organized construction site crime works, which institutions profit as a result, and how these institutions support one another to give organized theft the means to survive. Finally, it explains the reasons for failure of current attempts to fight this type of crime and suggests the types of institutional and societal changes needed to curtail it.

scholarly journals Safety Helmet Wearing Management System for Construction Workers Using Three-Axis Accelerometer Sensor

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
SungHun Kim ◽  
Changwon Wang ◽  
Se Dong Min ◽  
Seung-Hyun Lee
Keyword(s):  
Construction Industry ◽  
Management System ◽  
Safety Management ◽  
High Accuracy ◽  
Construction Workers ◽  
Construction Sites ◽  
Accelerometer Sensor ◽  
Sensing Data ◽  
Develop Technology ◽  
Technical Studies

In the Korean construction industry, legal and institutional safety management improvements are continually being pursued. However, there was a 4.5% increase in the number of workers’ deaths at construction sites in 2017 compared to the previous year. Failure to wear safety helmets seems to be one of the major causes of the increase in accidents, and so it is necessary to develop technology to monitor whether or not safety helmets are being used. However, the approaches employed in existing technical studies on this issue have mainly involved the use of chinstrap sensors and have been limited to the problem of whether or not safety helmets are being worn. Meanwhile, improper wearing, such as when the chinstrap and harness fixing of the safety helmet are not properly tightened, has not been monitored. To remedy this shortcoming, a sensing safety helmet with a three-axis accelerometer sensor attached was developed in this study. Experiments were performed in which the sensing data were classified whether the safety helmet was being worn properly, not worn, or worn improperly during construction workers’ activities. The results verified that it is possible to differentiate among wearing status of the proposed safety helmet with a high accuracy of 97.0%

scholarly journals ASSESSMENT OF THE AWARENESS AND SAFETY PRACTICES IN MITIGATING HAZARDS OF SILICA DUST EXPOSURE AMONG CONSTRUCTION WORKERS

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Engr. Jeferd E. Saong ◽  
Abigail L. Babaran ◽  
Glenn Dale A. Balaho
Keyword(s):  
Health Effects ◽  
Personal Protective Equipment ◽  
Construction Workers ◽  
Dust Exposure ◽  
Protective Equipment ◽  
Construction Site ◽  
Construction Sites ◽  
Safety Practices ◽  
Silica Dust ◽  
Mode Of Transmission

Construction sites generate high levels of dust typically from concrete, silica, asbestos, cement, wood, stone, and sand. Workers who are exposed to the said environment are faced with the risk of inhaling particulate materials that might lead to adverse respiratory problems. The lack of publication on the awareness of construction workers on the risk associated with silica dust exposure was the basis of the study. This study assessed the level of awareness of construction workers on the risk associated with silica dust exposure and the safety practices to minimize it. Purposive sampling was used in the selection of 65 respondents from different construction sites located in Baguio City, Philippines. A survey questionnaire containing four point Likert scales were used to determine the level of awareness on the health effects, mode of transmission, and sources of silica dust. The study further assessed the level of safety practices in mitigating the effects of silica dust exposure. The respondents were moderately aware (M=2.52) of the health effects, moderately aware (M=2.69) of the mode of transmission, and moderately aware (M=3.08) of the sources of silica dust. The results further showed that the respondents moderately practiced (M=2.84) activities to mitigate the health effects of silica dust exposure and moderately practiced (M=3.17) the use of personal protective equipment in the construction site. The results suggest that construction workers must be made more aware of the health effects of silica dust exposure and, mitigation activities and utilization of personal protective equipment must be strictly imposed in the construction site.

scholarly journals The Competency Level of Indonesian Migrant Workers in Malaysia

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (5C) ◽  
pp. 314-317
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Construction Industry ◽  
Human Resource ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Construction Workers ◽  
Industry Data ◽  
Competency Level ◽  
Survey Questionnaires

Poor competency of construction workers in the construction industry is considered one of the most discouraging human resource issues in developing countries. This paper reports an investigation into the competency level of Indonesian migrant workers in the Malaysian construction industry. Data from this research was collected from the survey questionnaires with 300 Indonesian migrant workers. Results indicated that the levels of knowledge, skill and attitude among Indonesian migrant workers towards the trades in the construction industry only showed moderate levels. Suggestions for ways to overcome skill gap among Indonesian migrant workers were given in order to enhance their competency level in the construction industry.

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