Work, Rest And Play

Can quarry workers expect a balance?

I was asked to give this presentation because of my involvement with annualized hours schemes as both a manager and a member of the workforce. When I came into the quarrying industry over 20 years ago I became involved with the GMB union as a safety representative, shop steward and then branch secretary. During this time I was part of a company task force to investigate a 48h working week scheme that was running successfully at Ketton Cement Works. I am now quarry manager of a unit that is operating a similar successful scheme, which benefits both the company and the employees.

The Working Time Directive (WTD) has been used by Aggregate Industries as a guide to reduce working hours while still providing a service to customers, and hopefully the company will be well placed to comply if and when the opt out provision is removed. There is a big black hole appearing in the industry as far as recruitment is concerned and a well implemented scheme could help entice fresh blood into the industry.

Historically, the quarrying industry recruited from the farming community or within a close radius from the quarry and usually by word of mouth. Operatives were paid a basic rate that was just above the minimum wage and, to achieve a decent standard of living, excessive overtime was the norm. Management believed that this was cost-effective because it was the way things had always been done. The work was also seasonal, so when stocks were high the workforce was either laid off or put on short time.

I am one of the workforce who, 20 years ago, would regularly work over 70h a week. I missed my daughter growing up because I was always at work, going to bed at 8pm and getting back to work by 4am (there are two four o’clock’s in the working day!). The result was that at any moment I could fall asleep, even in company at home. I remember one colleague who would regularly fall asleep for a few minutes while eating his sandwiches at breakfast break time. I would like to emphasise, therefore, that working long hours definitely affects the quality of life and must have an impact on health and safety.

To design a successful scheme to meet the criteria of the WTD the most important issue is a change of culture for both workforce and management. A totally flexible workforce is required to meet customer requirements with personnel self-managing their work areas. This extra responsibility gives personnel a greater pride in their work. Asphalt plant operators, for example, do not know until late Friday afternoon whether they will be required to work at the weekend. The whole system works on trust, and the manager is expected to treat everyone fairly and rotate the unsocial elements to provide the customer with any service required.

It is easy to introduce such a system at a unit working standard hours, ie weekdays 7am to 7pm plus Saturday mornings. Difficulties arise, however, where cover is required 24h a day, seven days a week. This is why everyone has to accept that there is no formal start or finish time and trust that, over a period of time, everyone in the scheme will work less that 48h a week. However, a word of warning; for this to work to its full potential, the scheme must have the buy-in and support of every employee affected by the system. Without this the performance of the many will be negatively affected by the actions of a few, unless they are addressed from the outset as part of a change of culture programme.

A personal example of a change in culture was when I sent an employee home at 1.30pm when normally he would have finished at 5pm. He thought it was stupid and said his kids had not even come home from school yet. A few weeks later, however, he commented that the early finishes meant he had been spending more time with his family and had managed to finish jobs around the house that he had not had time for previously.

Under the old scheme, on Saturdays when maintenance was carried out, although everyone had different jobs to complete they must have been the best time study engineers in the world because they all managed to complete their tasks by 5pm. At 4.45pm there would be a line of men standing at the clock waiting for the next quarter of an hour to pass before clocking out. Now when the work is complete, the workforce goes home. For example, if only 100 tonnes of asphalt are required on a Sunday, then personnel may only be on site for a couple of hours.

Salaries need to have unsocial hours payments built in to reflect the commitment that the individual has given on their previous P60 earnings. Multi-skilling also has to be reflected in the new salary. The total expenditure on salaries must, however, meet budget requirements and be cost neutral. If there is not a rigorous job-evaluation process at the outset, the scheme will be doomed to failure when holidays, sickness and training days occur. A lot of effort was spent on re-training at the start of our scheme so that we were confident we could cover every job role.

Advantages for the company

The wage bill is now a total fixed cost with no overtime payments incurred. Employees are more focused on customer demands and are totally flexible. Before the scheme was started we had advertised for staff in three local newspapers and through the local employment bureau. A lot of time and money was wasted with no response at all. After the scheme had been working for about a year, an advert placed in the local gazette, which cost less than £30, together with word of mouth, produced 12 suitable applicants. The main reasons for the better response were the higher basic salary and the hours of working. In my particular quarry, the profits through higher productivity have increased each year that the scheme has been in operation.

Disadvantages for the company

If excessive hours have been worked in the past, extra personnel may need to be recruited for the system to work effectively. It is impossible to keep one person on one job because of the multi-skilling requirements. This may add to the cost of machine repairs as ownership of plant can be lost. In other words, when a machine used by a number of operatives becomes damaged, it is difficult to establish which driver has caused the problem. This is the downside of multi-skilling.

Advantages for the employee

• more free time
• more quality time with families
• higher basic salary
• more fringe benefits
• increased financial security.

Disadvantages for the employee

• work patterns are no longer fixed, they change to meet customer requirements
• time off can be unpredictable
• an employee cannot increase their salary to meet personal demands. In the past extra overtime could have been worked to pay off a debt but this is impossible under the new system.

ATTRACTING A MORE DIVERSE WORKFORCE

According to recent EPIC statistics, as shown in the graph, there is a big black hole appearing with 30% of the workforce being over 50 years old. Not enough personnel were recruited in the 1980s and 1990s because of the recession in the industry. These statistics highlight the position today but imagine what it will be like in 10 years time. If new recruits are not enticed into the industry now, there will be trouble in the future. An annualized hours scheme will help attract a more diverse workforce.

Other factors making it difficult to recruit new staff include: the industry recruits from traditional sources; low numbers of applications are from women; ethnic minorities are under-represented; most new starters find working in the industry a ‘shock to the system’; and the industry has an overtly macho culture. All this means that the workforce is getting older.

The following are comments made by women working in our industry: ‘We have to work twice as hard as our male counterparts to prove that we are equal to them’; ‘They only employ us because we are a source of cheap labour’; ‘I had to prove that I could work in a male culture before I was accepted into the industry’.

How many people in the industry would be prepared to let their daughter work in a quarry. Look past the fancy quarry office building and look at the welfare facilities provided for women down in the quarry, if any. We have got to create a better environment for young women to work in if we are going to attract them into the industry.

What are potential recruits looking for?

• an interesting job
• a chance to get on in life
• to be treated with respect
• sympathetic management
• a job that earns respect from society
• financial security.

I believe, as an industry, we provide potential recruits with the right prospects as we have a lot of long-service employees. However, we have not raised the profile of our industry. For example, an Aggregate Industries employee wanted to join an elite golf club in the Midlands and, when interviewed by the club captain, was asked what profession he was in. When he said he was in aggregates he was allowed to join the club. He was, in fact, a primary crusher operator.

I asked my nephew, who has just passed his O-levels, and my niece, who is now at university, what they knew about jobs in quarrying. My nephew said he knew nothing apart from what he had seen on The Flintstones. Both said they had never been given any information or guidance in school about the quarrying industry.

How do we expect to promote a more diverse workforce if we do not sell ourselves at school level? All companies have different schemes to entice young people into the industry, for example Futurepath. We have school visits for the children and graduate fairs yet we miss out on the school leavers who are the future of our industry. The armed forces have a different approach. They have trained recruitment personnel who target 16–18-year-olds. My solution to the low recruitment of school leavers would be to employ them during the school holidays to give them a taste of the industry. In this way they would understand the working environment and could, at an early age, decide on the path they would like their career to follow. This would help them by not wasting valuable years in the wrong job, and the industry would not have to spend time and money training someone who does not have their heart in the job and will eventually resign.

Failure to change could close us down sooner than any environmental legislation would.

This paper is based on a presentation made by Alan Connolly, quarry manager at Aggregate Industries’ Hulands Quarry, Bowes, and Institute of Quarrying committee member, North of England branch, at the Institute’s annual conference symposium in October 2005.