Building Trades Research Articles

Demonstration hearing conservation program for construction workers in Washington State

Construction workers have traditionally been an ‘‘underserved’’ population in the area of noise control and hearing conservation. Approximately 500,000 of these workers are currently exposed to potentially hazardous levels of noise and little progress has been made to the U.S. to mitigate this exposure. A labor–management–professional team composed of members of the Washington State Building and Construction Trades Council, the Building Trades Labor Management Organization, the Center to Protect Workers’ Rights, and professionals in industrial hygiene, audiology, and medicine, have developed a ‘‘common sense’’ hearing conservation program to serve construction workers and employers. Initiated as a demonstration program in the State of Washington, the program is tailored to the U.S. construction industry. It will include worker and supervisor training using construction-specific materials, training in the fundamentals of construction noise control, fitting and training in the use of hearing protection devices, audiometric surveillance, centralized record keeping, and the evaluation of program effectiveness. Special emphasis is being placed on the use of readily available noise control solutions as well as hearing protection devices that will not degrade communication and the perception of warning signals. Program plans are currently being finalized and training will be initiated in December of 2000.

'The white slavery of the motor world': Opportunism in the interwar road haulage industry

Subcontracting has been an important feature of British industrial development. External (inter-firm) subcontracting, common in the building trades, transport and engineering, has been represented as an alternative to large-scale direct management. Meanwhile internal subcontracting to skilled artisans has historically constituted an important alternative to wage labour in a wide range of industries such as clothing and textiles, coal mining and quarrying, iron and steel, engineering and the metal goods trades. Understanding this form of subcontracting is central to explanations of changes in the labour process, industrial relations and gender divisions of labour in these sectors. A considerable literature stretching from the nineteenth century has questioned the possible exploitative consequences of such contractual arrangements. While both forms of subcontracting declined from the late nineteenth century, as firms sought to internalize production and management, external subcontracting continued to be important in several sectors such as construction, transport and some engineering-related trades. It is in these industries that subcontracting established its recognizable modern form, with medium and large businesses delegating tasks to smaller firms or individuals. The last two decades have witnessed a renaissance of subcontracting, in the context of corporate moves towards reducing costs by fostering greater labour market flexibility’. The British road haulage industry was transformed between the wars from a primarily short distance service to a major competitor to the railways, due to technological developments and measures that reduced the immediate cost of vehicle acquisition. As an essentially ‘new’ industry in which subcontracting became a key feature, it provides an excellent illustration of the development of subcontracting relations. The industry’s growth was facilitated by freight clearing houses which subcontracted haulage to individual vehicle owners. These intermediaries were crucial in negating barriers to entry in the haulage trade, by arranging hire purchase (HP) for vehicle purchases and co-ordinating payloads. Such inducements attracted considerable numbers of subcontractors into the sector. While recognizing these potential advantages, virtually all commentators on the industry have stressed the highly exploitative effects of its subcontracting relations. The industry’s trade journal The Commercial Motor frequently highlighted abuses, arguing that while ‘responsible’ clearing houses existed, they were in a minority. Most were said to exploit their powerful position over hauliers, especially those drivers who became tied to their services, driving down their rates with ‘a wonderful compound of cynicism and pretended helplessness’. Contemporary and historical academic analysis of road haulage during this period has generally offered a similar verdict without examining subcontracting in any great detail. This article re-examines this conclusion by explicitly focusing upon the relations between clearing houses and hauliers. It uses the framework of transactions cost analysis to explain how clearing houses were able to push down subcontractors’ rates by exploiting privileged information, while using HP arrangements and other contractual obligations to monopolize the subcontractors’ services. Such practices generated persistently low incomes for hauliers, who found it necessary to work excessively long hours in an attempt to stave off business failure. These problems were exacerbated by overcapacity within the sector, which can be partly attributed to the reduced barriers to entry arising from clearing house incentives. In addition, some clearing houses capitalized upon the potential for opportunism provided by contemporary HP contract law, engineering subcontractor default on HP payments to regain possession of vehicles. The article begins by outlining the emergence and form of subcontracting in road haulage. It then discusses the nature and impact of opportunism in the sector, explaining why independent hauliers enjoyed limited earning opportunities outside their dealings with the clearing houses, the significance of their contractual obligations and the role played by HP commitments. The analysis also considers why exploitative subcontracting relations were able to persist for many years, despite being widely recognized by well-informed observers. In conclusion the article briefly comments on the wider relevance of opportunism for the analysis of subcontracting in other sectors.

Wars of attrition: Vietnam, the business roundtable, and the decline of construction unions

The decline of the once quasi-monopolistic construction unions during the last quarter of the twentieth century was not unique: in the steel, automobile, rubber, clothing, and other industries unions also experienced severe decreases in membership. But unlike industrial unions, the building trades were not victims of cheap imports from an inexorably globalizing economy: high-wage union pipefitters building petrochemical and power plants in Texas did not lose their jobs to low-paid construction workers in or from China. Instead, their jobs were taken by compatriots, some of them until recently union brothers, employed by cut-rate antiunion construction firms — some of which had been union firms in good standing. Indeed, some nonunion contractors were subsidiaries of long-time respectable union contractors.Unlike their counterparts in manufacturing industries, where employment plummeted in tandem with unionization, construction workers significantly increased in number. Moreover, whereas the world market did not begin intimidating U.S. industrial workers until the latter half of the 1970s, construction unions became subject to economic and political attacks a decade earlier, during the Vietnam War. This asynchronous development was curious because competitive pressure on the construction industry was largely derivative. Since the primary source of these attacks was large industrial owner-customers, which complained that exploding construction wages were driving new plant construction costs to levels at which the products produced in them were becoming less competitive, manufacturing corporations, remarkably, did not focus on their own employees, but turned instead to construction workers, whose wages represented only a small share of the costs of manufactured products. And finally, much more so than their industrial colleagues, construction workers were attacked by a complex coalition of employers, the state, industrial customers, and the media, intent on breaking unions’ control of the supply of skilled building tradesmen.Against the background of the depletion of the industrial reserve army during the Vietnam War, this book explains how the complex interaction between the invisible hand of the labor market and the visible hands of large industrial customers, the Federal Government, and construction employer organizations inflicted a series of defeats on the building trades unions — the most entrenched segment of the labor movement in the United States — culminating in the vast expansion of the “union-free” sector of the construction industry.

Sound radiation from a line forced perforated elastic sandwich panel

Composite barriers, consisting of thin plates separated by light matrix structures, are widely used for fuselage construction in the aircraft industry, and in partitions in the building trade. The acoustical properties of such materials can vary considerably by altering the interior geometry, and perforations can be added to one or both sides. With perforations the interior cavities can act as Helmholtz resonators, causing a substantial modification to the overall transmission and reflection properties of such barriers. Leppington [Proc. R. Soc. London, Ser. A 427, 385–399 (1990)] devised an effective boundary condition for a perforated sandwich plate structure, valid in the limit of low frequency (acoustical waves long compared with the typical dimensions of the hole/cavity construction), and obtained transmission and reflection coefficients for infinite planar structures. This article investigates the radiation properties of perforated sandwich plates by examining a simple infinite one-dimensional model (employing Leppington’s effective boundary condition) which is loaded by a line force or moment. The radiated far field, and unattenuated subsonic plate wave coefficients, are found explicitly, and are plotted over a range of frequencies for two physical configurations, namely an aluminum plate in water and in air. It is revealed that, unlike the usual thin plate equation, the model discussed herein has two bi-directional unattenuated plate waves, and for the structure in air the two waves are of similar magnitude over most frequencies. Surprisingly, these amplitudes are shown to become very large at a frequency below that of the structure’s Helmholtz resonance frequency. Further, the field radiating into air is also significantly modified by the cavity/perforations well away from the Helmholtz frequency.

Peritoneal mesothelioma--incidence and etiology

A total of 70 malignant and 4 benign peritoneal mesotheliomas were diagnosed by the German Mesothelioma Registry between 1992 and 1998. Malignant mesotheliomas developed mainly in men (55/70); only one man had a benign peritoneal alteration. Age at first diagnosis of malignant mesotheliomas is about 59 years; the women are on average 4 years younger than the men. Mean survival time ranges about 1 year; in 6 of 38 patients longer survival times of up to 7 years are known. The epitheloid subtype predominates, but no effect on survival time is noticed. The percentage of patients with combined asbestos-associated lung fibrosis is higher than that for pleural mesotheliomas; these patients become ill about 6.5 years earlier. The latency period is 36 years on average. For most patients asbestos exposure is related to their occupation mainly in metal industries, asbestos industries, and in the building trade. There is no evidence for an induction of benign peritoneal alterations by asbestos dust.

Slipping through the Cracks: The Origins of Aided Self-help Housing, 1918-53

The history of aided self-help housing, that is, of housing built with state assistance by families for their own use, is largely unknown. There is a widespread misapprehensionthat such a policy was first discussed and practised during the 1960s, in the context of the Third World. In fact, it was adopted in the Soviet Union, and in many European nations and cities, notably Vienna and Stockholm, after the First World War. During the 1930s it was incorporated into homestead schemes, and praised, on both sides of the Atlantic. Then, for a time after the Second World War, it was widely debated and adopted in many of the more advanced industrial societies. Unlike public housing or market-oriented policies, aided self-help never had strong political or ideological associations. In one sense this was a strength: at different places and times, it was endorsed from all sides of the political spectrum. In other respects its detachment from parties and ideologies was a weakness. It was not promoted by any political constituency, and aroused opposition from the building industry and trades. At best aided self-help has sometimes filled, and at the worst it has slipped through, the cracks in state housing policy.

Sacroiliac joint diagnostics in the Hamburg Construction Workers Study

Background: In the medical literature, test procedures for sacroiliac joint diagnostics are viewed as controversial. The provocation tests are based on provoked sacroiliac pain, whereas the palpation tests examine the motion of the sacroiliac joint or describe the condition indirectly if limitation of the sacroiliac function is present. It must be presumed that the use of different test results in the detection of varying functional phenomena of a sacroiliac dysfunction or, alternatively, that identical effects of a dysfunction are evaluated in differing ways. Objective: This article presents results with regard to the consistency of tests for sacroiliac joint dysfunctions carried out on participants from the building trade. Design and Participants: The consistency of the tests (standing flexion test, spine test, iliac compression test, iliac springing test) used in a cross-section investigation of a cohort of 480 male construction workers is presented. To evaluate the degree of consistency of the test procedure the percentage agreement and the kappa value, including a confidence interval of 95%, are given. Results: The consistency between the iliac compression test and the three sacroiliac palpation tests could not be shown to be statistically significant. The consistency between the three palpation tests was moderate to good and the percentage agreement was acceptable (87.4%, 88.6%, 80.9%). Conclusions: It may be assumed that the palpation tests characterize the same dysfunction of the sacroiliac joint. Standing flexion test, spine test, and iliac springing test seem to be valuable tools for sacroiliac joint diagnostics. (J Manipulative Physiol Ther 1999;22:139–43).

Factors Which Influence the Size of the Contemporary Dwelling: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

This study investigates the phenomenon of building big dwellings in contemporary Saudi society. It relates the size of the contemporary villa-type dwelling with the traditional dwelling, and it compares it to a number of average (standard) international dwellings. It questions the rationale of its large size; hence, it argues against leaving this trend to continue unchecked. It further defines and discusses factors which influence the dwelling size, i.e. economic, socio-cultural, and new building practice and trade. The aim of this research is to draw attention to this phenomenon, to inform those involved in housing policy and design of the extent of size-related problems in terms of initial construction and furnishing cost and in terms of operating and maintenance life-cycle cost, and to call for further research to investigate its social, environmental, and economic impact on the country and its population.

Determining mechanical properties and main characteristic values of Poplar plywood by medium-sized test pieces

Wood-based panels represent an important category of composites consisting of natural raw materials and one or more synthetic products. They are available in a wide range of types and thus can satisfy the most frequent needs and functions of the building trades. In light of renewed interest in the structural uses of these materials, an adequate mechanical characterization is necessary to designers who require reliable information for structural analysis. In this context, an extensive research program has been developed at the University of Trento, Italy to characterize Poplar plywood. These testing methodologies, which adhere to the new European Standards, along with some preliminary results are briefly analyzed and presented herein.

Irish voice and organized labor in America: a biographical study

Introduction Origins and Encounters Pathfinders: McGuire and Powderly A Pair of Fenian Rebels: McDonnell and Roney P. H. McCarthy: Lord of the Building Trades A Trio of Radicals: Flynn, Foster, and Jones John Fitzpatrick: Humanitarian Irish and the CIO: Brophy, Murray, and Quill A Rising in the Work Force Selected Bibliography Index

Book Review: Working Sober: The Transformation of an Occupational Drinking Culture

Working Sober: The Transformation of an Occupational Drinking Culture, by William J. Sonnenstuhl (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), 143 pp., $14.95 (paperback). There may well be, as old Doc Johnson used to insist, nothing quite like the gallows for concentrating one's mind, but for working folks the sudden prospect of long-term unemployment comes close. For a number of unions and civil service employees in New York City, something like that happened in the wake of the city's fiscal crisis in the mid-1970s. How one union turned economic duress into therapeutic inventiveness is the somewhat underplayed theme of Professor William J. Sonnenstuhl's Working Sober, a study of the fiercely self-protective Tunnel and Construction Workers Union, better known as sandhogs. As anyone even vaguely familiar with the building trades can attest, drinking-and the rituals, larger-than-life stories, subterfuges, cover-ups, missed deadlines, and occasionally sloppy work associated with it-is endemic in the worklife of a good number of blue-collar occupations. Sonnenstuhl shows clearly that this is something more than an elective affinity between dirty work and disreputable workers. In fact, his most convincing observations (at least to this reader) deal with the critical role that the staging areas of public drinking-the bars, pubs and hoghouses (changing rooms at mining sites)-have played in the recruitment and shaping (or daily selection) of this union's workers. Drinking with fellow sandhogs became a way first of establishing and then of renewing one's bona fides with them. Getting sloshed was the currency of belonging; standing for drinks around, a promise of more lasting and consequential reciprocal ties. Drinking lubricated the workday itself, eased its aftermath, and organized much of the workers' social life. (How it affected their family is only vaguely and glancingly mentioned.) In the somewhat stilted sociologese Sonnenstuhl tends to favor, the sandhogs experience their intemperate rituals as the means for constructing and reconstructing their sense of community. Drinking rituals solidify boundaries by enhancing members' sense of self and underscoring the obligations they owe one another; thus, they promote communal bonding among members (p. 82). But the point of Sonnenstuhl's study is not merely to chronicle what we know already too well. From both the historical sources he ably draws upon and my own discipline of anthropology, we have ample evidence of the varieties of constructive (Douglas, 1987) in multicultural places and times-the male bonding, stress reducing, identity annealing, repression lifting, fear defeating functions of elbow bending. If anything, the argument that drinking became a taken-for-granted fact of work life (p. 29) is overdetermined. The trick, as the subtitle of Sonnenstuhl's volume promises is to understand what turn out to be the crucial elements of its undoing. How does it come to pass that an occupational culture permeated by the ritual chemistry of gets sobriety? What prompts the transformation? How are the old ways of deconstructed? And, critically, with what sober versions of work, bonding, identity, story-telling, boundary maintenance, and reciprocity are they replaced? Here, as in most poorly understood cultural transformations, the play's the thing: what, with some detail and attention to chronology, actually happened? What was the sequence of events, actions and motivations of dramatic personae, new configurations of power and reciprocal obligations that stabilize new ways of working? And on this score, although the bare essentials are here, Sonnenstuhl's account is somewhat disappointing, reading in places more like Cliffs Notes than ethnography. (To be fair, he never claims to be doing ethnography; for six months in 1985, he used a variety of qualitative methods-some field visits to homes and work sites interviews with key informants, and extensive interaction with alcoholism program personnel-to get the story. …

The long‐term importance of education to raise safety levels and the implementation of the CDM regulations in the European building industry

Sets out to examine the need to educate professionals involved in all trades at all levels throughout the construction industry so that the industry as a whole becomes safety conscious. States that the European legislation governing the conduct of building operations from inception, through use and maintenance to demolition is now in place, and in the UK the CDM regulations came into effect in March 1995 and implement the European Community Temporary or Mobile Construction Site Directive. Says that many problems have been instigated by the CDM in the UK in smaller contractors on smaller jobs who may become the “principal contractor”, without having the financial, managerial or technical resources of the larger contractor, yet having the same safety responsibilities. This would seem to potentially create a problem which affects the operation and validity of the regulations. Seeks to address these problems and inconsistencies in the knowledge and expertise gap concerning safety in the construction industry. Aims to address a number of questions: how can we ensure the long‐term safety on site?; how can these problems be alleviated, while achieving in this case the worthwhile goal of safer building?; how can the problem of the small builder be addressed on a European basis?; can the training and education of those in the building trade be altered to improve safety awareness and procedures? Anticipates that feedback information will be generated regarding safety standards and their optimization throughout sectors of the industry. Recommends that all trades and professions must incorporate safety within their particular skill training and all persons involved should be licensed by the trade association and a consumer safeguard and the safety of persons in the industry.

Clinical features and epidemiology of malignant pleural mesothelioma in west Glasgow 1987-1992.

Malignant pleural mesothelioma is almost exclusively caused by exposure to asbestos dust. Recent epidemiological studies have suggested that the national incidence of disease may continue to rise until 2020 and that asbestos exposure in the building trade may be replacing shipyard related exposure as the main source of disease. The objective of the study was to determine if the incidence of malignant pleural mesothelioma was rising in the west of Glasgow from 1987-1992 and whether there had been a change in clinical features compared to previous studies from the same population. Case notes identified from coded returns and the local cancer registry were retrospectively examined: 144 cases were identified. This is an increase in incidence of over 50% compared to the previous study but the yearly incidence did not rise over the period studied. The clinical features and survival times have not changed since previous studies: median survival remains 30 weeks. Only three patients were given definitive treatment reflecting the lack of effective therapy. We suggest that the incidence of mesothelioma in the population studied may already have peaked resulting from the decline in the local shipyard industry over 20 years ago. Non-shipyard sources of asbestos exposure may be less important in this area.

Proposal of a product model for the building trade

Like other industries, the building trade has had to face up to economic crisis. It is crucial for all the interacting parties to design and achieve new practices and methods, allowing them to improve performances as well as the quality of the object to be built, while reducing the costs of building projects. To achieve this, a multiple evolution of the building trade is necessary: a technical evolution which defines a process for improving performances, an organisational evolution which better structures the building project procedure and improves communication between the actors, and finally a human evolution which increases the practical and theoretical background of the parties involved. The research of Laboratoire d'Automatique et de Mécanique Industrielle et Humaine, Université de Valenciennes, particularly concerns the last two points, and aims to define a complete methodology to apply a concurrent engineering approach to the building trade. This methodology includes three stages: the definition of a building project procedure which integrates a concurrent approach, the establishment of a product model; and the design of an integrated computer system for the building trade.

The Problem of Interactions in World History

JERRY BENTLEY, in proposing a periodization of world history, offers us more than a set of periods. He defends a specific criterion for evaluating world-historical change, develops his set of periods out of that criterion, and utilizes the periods to suggest long-term interpretations of history. His criterion focuses on cross-cultural interaction. More precisely, he identifies three main of (mass migration, empire building, and long-distance trade) as having had significant repercussions across the boundary lines of societies and cultural regions. In applying his criterion to develop a periodization, Bentley relies on documented changes in the scale and character of these three kinds of processes to identify six major periods in the history of the Afro-Eurasian land mass.1 Then, within the framework of this periodization, he offers a narrative of periodic expansion in scale and transformation in character of cross-cultural interactions. The latter point is worthy of underscoring: if Bentley's interpretation focused mainly on expansions in the scale of cross-cultural contacts, we would have yet another narrative of progress. Instead, he sidesteps a linear interpretation of world history by emphasizing successive changes in the character of cross-cultural interactions along with their growing magnitude.2 I find Bentley's presentation to be elegant and comprehensive, and I am inclined to accept cross-cultural interaction as an appropriate criterion for periodizing world history. But the implications of Bentley's scheme may be broader than they first appear.3 For if one accepts cross-cultural interaction as the criterion for periodization in world history, one tends at the same time to accept such interactions as the main subject matter of world history. This big step requires some discussion.

The Cobb at Lyme Regis, Dorset. A Sideways Look at Vernacular Materials and Techniques

AbstractAnyone researching the history of traditional building materials and techniques is bound to arrive, sooner or later, at the question of when (if ever) they cease to be vernacular and, following on from this, a return to the knotty problem of what defines 'vernacular'. Thatching, for example, is claimed in some quarters to be the last living vernacular building trade, although the water reed used for thatch today may be imported from China, the craftsman schooled through a national training scheme and the transaction with the client may involve selling insurance as well as re-roofing. Traditional Devon mud construction can be found in the unvernacular context of 1790s symmetrical sash-windowed houses designed to attract very polite company to the south coast resort of Exmouth and pairs of Victorian villas on the outskirts of Exeter. It would not be difficult to argue that the inter-war self-built plotlands developments, using corrugated iron or old railway carriages, produced perfectly vernacular b...

CARPENTER STAINLESS TYPE 430

Abstract CARPENTER STAINLESS TYPE 430 is a chromium stainless steel that is especially useful for all types of decorative trim. This steel is suitable for trim on automobiles, cameras, vending machines, counters and showcases, electrical appliances and finished hardware in the building trade. The alloy also has many applications in both the petrochemical and chemical area. Type 430 has moderate strength and good ductility. It can be cold worked readily for producing trim and can be joined successfully by several methods. This datasheet provides information on composition, physical properties, hardness, elasticity, and tensile properties as well as fracture toughness, and deformation. It also includes information on corrosion resistance as well as forming, heat treating, machining, and joining. Filing Code: SS-384. Producer or source: Carpenter. Originally published March 1981, revised April 1995.

Application of modern geomorphological methods in theory and practice: Case study of the Bohemian Highlands (Czech Republic)

There are a lot of methods used in geomorphological research (Goudie 1992). However, sometimes it is very hard to find their application in practice. This paper deals with an application of geomorphological methods such as morphostructural analysis, detailed geomorphological mapping and computer analysis in the Geographical Information System ARC/INFO, in the field and discusses their application at the building trade, ecology, etc. The author applied them to geomorphological research in the northeastern part of the Hercynian Bohemian Highlands.

The Recession in Finland and the Labour Market for Academic Degree Holders

The latest period of recession in Finland has been deeper than ever. With about 20% of the labour force out of work, unemployment has reached record figures, but there are also new qualitative features in the crisis. The structure of the labour market is changing. Although the situation now seems to be improving the recession will last for a long time and the changes taking place are painful. Structural changes are occurring in both the economy as a whole and the organisation of working life. The activities of the public sector have been cut back in both the service and administrative branches, and in companies and non-profit organisations, the number of personnel has decreased. Only essential staff have stable jobs; other employees are given temporary contracts and often services are bought from outside consultants. The trend is towards a more flexible way of organising work. The recession has also influenced the situation of academic degree holders, which had been quite satisfactory before, although having a higher education qualification still opens up better opportunities for employment. In 1993 the overall unemployment rate was 18%; it was only 5% for master-level degree holders and 7% for bachelor-level degree holders (figures from the Central Statistical Office of Finland). However, the employment situation varies between different groups. Graduates with technical education and young degree holders have had the most problems in finding work [1]. The building trade, for example, is in serious difficulties; the unemployment rate for architects working in the private sector is 50%, according to the Finnish Association of Architects. Opportunities to change profession are restricted, because their education is specific and their professional socialisation is often strong. It is difficult for degree holders in general to get a job outside their own field so they tend to remain unemployed (Haapakorpi, 1994). At the beginning of the 1990s opportunities for graduates to obtain employment were at their worst. The most difficult problem is to reach the first hurdle, which is usually some kind of employer's test of suitability. Once the applicant has passed the test, subsequent stages of his or her career are easier to deal with. By working before graduating, students help to improve their chances of getting a job after taking their degree; participation in working life leads to connections in

La Force du Droit. Contribution à la définition de l'entrepreneur parisien du bâtiment au XVIIIe siècle

Abstract The French historiography does still ignore the concept of the Ancient Regime entrepreneur. In order to contribute to its understanding, this study gets down to analysing the entrepreneur practising in the building field : « the entrepreneur in the building trade » - most of the time a master-mason - term which already in the modern times was a pleonasm. After clarifying the confusion which prevailed over people's minds and which still remains today when we deal with the entrepreneur, the architect or the construction engineer, the experience in law (especially the judicial Archives of the Chamber of the building trade) brings scientifically two necessary and sufficient criteria to a clear and simple definition of the entrepreneur of the building trade : a training and a contract. In future the identification of these different characters should be easier and reliable.