Shifting to a 5-day working week in the construction industry could lead to workers turning to unregulated grey sector projects, potentially exposing them to higher safety risks and compounding fatigue due to longer working days.
A recent study found that the safety impacts of a 5-day week in the construction industry vary significantly from person to person and model to model.
The majority of study participants thought that a five-day week would compromise safety because longer daily working hours during the week would create significantly greater cumulative fatigue than working on the weekends.
“This was a special concern for labour-intensive trades that were exposed to elements such as bricklayers, steelworkers, and concreters, as well as jobs such as crane drivers, which required concentration. These workers are already exposed to high safety risks,” said the two-year study, which was conducted by the Master Builders Association of New South Wales in partnership with the School of the Built Environment at the University of Technology Sydney.
The main safety concerns revolved around longer and later commute times during the week and the consequences of reduced time with family and recovery time during the week.
There was also widespread agreement that construction workers would probably use their weekends to find paid overtime work on other projects or on unregulated grey sector projects, which would be less well-regulated, managed and monitored.
“This would potentially expose them to higher safety risks and add further to the fatigue of workers who were already working longer extended days during the week,” the study said.
“There were also concerns about health and safety for professional off-project workers whose mental health and wellbeing may be compromised by working even longer hours than they already do (typically 10-12) during the week.”
MBA NSW executive director Brian Seidler said there had been a lot of discussion in recent years around whether there is a need to mandate a five-day week in the industry, where people working on-site can for fixed periods be on the job six or even seven days a week.
“Everyone is affected differently by a five-day week,” said UTS distinguished professor Martin Loosemore, who co-authored the study. “The jury is still very much out on the pros and cons for different people, projects, firms and clients.”
“Making major decisions on such unreliable evidence, which mandate a change in the working week for everyone is potentially dangerous for those whose lifestyles it doesn’t suit and for many firms and clients who will have to incur the potentially significant economic costs of such a profound change.”
If flexibility can be improved across the construction workforce, the study’s authors said it will remove the main reason for people supporting a hard five-day week and there will be no need to incur potential risks to individuals, employers and industry clients.