Building Work Research Articles

Traversing Precarity: The Socioeconomic Mobility of Female Migrant Building Workers in China

This article is located at the nexus of three bodies of geographical research. First, we respond to calls for careful and considered engagement with conditions, subjectivities, and experiences of precarity. Second, we contribute to the small but critically rich literature exploring structural organization of building industries and the everyday lives of workers. Third, we offer new ontological and epistemological momentum for long-standing study of migration in China. In doing so we interrogate ethnographic research focused on female migrants who work long hours, rarely take holidays, endure physical and emotional tiredness, extreme temperatures, dirty and dusty working conditions, family dislocations and, for some, challenging communal living. With an average age in the mid-forties, respondents nonetheless had moved from farms, factories, or both to building sites to secure higher salaries as well as contractual, financial, and familial stability. Few expressed concerns regarding working conditions nor articulated experiences of anxiety, uncertainty, and unmoored-ness at “the edges” of society. Drawing on feminist, materialist, and more-than-representational insights into resistance, resilience, and reworking, we unpack this empirical terrain, highlighting how female building workers respond to and shape relations of power, in and through mundane labor and domestic and family struggles. Overall, we contribute to progress in decolonizing geographical knowledge complexes.

Mundane urban (im)mobilities: work, domestic, and family lives of migrant building workers in China

ABSTRACT Interdisciplinary research from China has generated a wealth of quantitative and qualitative insights into trans-, national, regional, and local migration patterns over long and short distances through attention to diverse topics, socio-economic groups, and case-study locations. Our contribution in this paper is to advance recent critical work that is directing focus from rural-to-urban “circular movements” toward more complex spatialities and temporalities. To add value to that project, we not only engage with studies of urban (im)mobilities per se but also elaborate productive new avenues from across interdisciplinary mobilities research. Specifically, we draw on feminist, materialist, and more-than-representational thinking to highlight the contingent relatedness of migrants’ daily lives across diverse work, domestic, and family times/spaces both within and beyond cities. In doing so, we show how exploration of mundane urban (im)mobilities offers new insights to challenge binary depictions of city/countryside, home/destination, movement/stasis, belonging/marginalization, and moored/unmoordness. The conclusion signposts new research opportunities.

Sustainable energy skills in the construction sector 3.0: expertise, lessons learned, and developed methodologies on energy efficiency skills competencies, and qualifications

The European construction sector is one of the areas with the highest potential when it comes to reducing annual energy consumption. Facing many challenges to achieve ambitious energy efficiency objectives, this sector aims to proceed by applying successful training initiatives and supporting policy instruments. For this reason, the creation of BUILD UP Skills, an EU Initiative to improve the qualification and skills of Europe’s building workers, acted as a springboard to stimulate the demand for energy efficiency skills. Furthermore, focusing on the continuing education of craftsmen and other on-site building workers, this initiative is home to most of the projects presented during the Sustainable Energy Skills in the Construction sector workshops 1.0 and 2.0 and 3.0, presented at SP2020, SP2021 and SP 2022, respectively. Consisting of nine Horizon 2020 projects—PRO-Heritage, TRAIN4SUSTAIN, INSTRUCT, BUSLeague, the nZEB Roadshow, SEEtheSkills, ARISE, BUS-GoCircular and nZEB Ready—the objective of the third edition of the workshop was to share expertise, lessons learned, and developed methodologies on energy efficiency skills competencies, and qualifications across the building design, operation, and maintenance value chain.

Occupational Health Hazards and Risks among Construction and Building Workers at EL-Alamein City

Occupational Health Hazards and Risks among Construction and Building Workers at EL-Alamein City

Experimental study on flexural and seismic performances of RC members with non-rebar-contact ECC joints

Grout-filled sleeves are widely used to splice steel bars for precast structural members, e.g., beams and columns. However, steel bars are generally densely distributed at the splice and steel bar misalignment always exists in actual practice, which bring huge troubles to building workers when splicing steel bars. To address this issue, the authors used Engineering Cementitious Composites (ECC) as the only material to cast connection region, and expected ECC to take the place of the grout-filled sleeve for connecting longitudinal steel bars. For this purpose, the authors experimentally studied the mechanical behaviors of beams with non-rebar-contact ECC joint by four-point bending tests, and raised a special algorithm to determine the appropriate lap length. Based on the proposed algorithm, three columns with designed non-rebar-contact ECC joints were cast and tested under quasi-static cyclic loads. The test results showed that the specimens exhibited increasing flexural strength, energy dissipation and ductility with the increase of non-contact lap length. When the lap length is sufficiently long, the strength of specimens got close or even higher than that of continuous steel-reinforced specimen, however, the corresponding energy dissipation and ductility are, to some extent, less than those of the continuous steel-reinforced specimen. It is verified that well-designed ECC joint may take the place of grout-filled sleeve for connecting longitudinal steel bars and achieve “continuous steel-reinforcement equivalent” effect.

Long-term labor on borderline personality disorder of building workers

BackgroundA borderline personality disorder is a common personality disorder characterized by unstable emotions, interpersonal relationships, and behavior. In addition, there are many causes of borderline personality disorder, including genetic factors, biochemical factors, and psychosocial factors. At the same time, prolonged work is also one of the causes of borderline personality disorder.Subjects and Methods100 building workers with BPD in a certain area were selected as participants in this study and divided into two groups, the observation group, and the control group, with 50 cases in each group, to analyze the impact of prolonged work on borderline personality disorder (BPD) among construction workers. Both groups received medication for basic treatment. In addition, patients in the control group only need to work for a fixed time, 8 hours a day, and weekends are off. The observation group’s patient needs to work for a long time, 15 hours a day and has a weekend off. The treatment period for both groups of patients is one month. The analysis tools used in the study include the Hamilton Depression Scale, Hamilton Anxiety Scale, Personality Diagnosis Questionnaire Edge Scale, and SPSS23.0.ResultsThe results showed that after treatment, the marginal symptom score of the treatment group was significantly higher than that of the control group, and there was a significant difference between the two (P<0.05). After treatment, the depression and anxiety scores of the treatment group were significantly higher than those of the control group, and the difference between the two was significant (P<0.05).Conclusionsprolonged labor is not conducive to the rehabilitation of borderline personality disorders among construction workers.AcknowledgementThe research is supported by the excellent teaching team project of the “green basket project” in colleges and universities in Jiangsu Province (No. 2021JYTSZJZ05).

THE DUAL CHALLENGES OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC AND WORKING LIFE OF CONSTRUCTION WORKERS: A CASE STUDY IN MAYURBHANJ DISTRICT OF ODISHA

Background/Objectives: Today, it is highly emphasized that construction workers participation in the path of countrys development is depending upon by enhancing their social and economic status. In construction activities, health is the important determinant of employment, and it is the deteriorating factors consider to workers especially in construction sector. They are simultaneously engaging in economic and non-economic activities. The aim of this paper is to investigate socio-economic conditions and special emphasis has given to identify the work related problems of building construction workers in Mayurbhanj district of Odisha. Methods/Statistical analysis: The study largely relays on field data. A sample size of 300 building construction respondents were selected from the district by employing simple random sampling method. The respondents were interviewed with a well-structured schedule. Simple percentage and regression analysis was used to interpret the data. A multiple regression analysis has been conducted to show the economic impact of the construction work on the construction workers. The Garret Ranking Technique is used for analysing the study of problems faced by unorganised workers in Mayurbhanj District. Findings: In this multiple regression analysis saving is dependent variable whereas income, expenditure and type of work are independent variables. Income and expenditure are significant at 1 percent level and type of work is significant at 10 percent level. In the result of Garret Ranking the health hazards problem got the first rank with 89.44%, followed by ‘Heavy Physical Work got the second rank with 89.11 per cent of workers. This study concluded with some suggestions for improvement of the unorganised workers socio-economic conditions. KEY WORDS: Building workers, socio-economic Condition, work-site problems, Regression Analysis, Garret- Ranking Technique.

Leptospirosis Risk among Occupational Groups in Brazil, 2010-2015.

Leptospirosis is a zoonotic disease that is primarily transmitted through close contact with contaminated environments or infected animals. Brazil has the highest number of reported cases of leptospirosis in the Americas (approximately 4,000 annual cases). The purpose of this study is to identify the occupational groups with a higher risk of leptospirosis in Brazil from 2010 through 2015 among suspected cases reported to the national surveillance system. Confirmed and unconfirmed cases of leptospirosis with laboratory diagnosis, 20,193 and 59,034 respectively, were classified into 12 occupational groups. Confirmed cases were predominantly male (79.4%), between 25 and 59 years of age (68.3%), white (53.4%), illiterate or with incomplete primary education (51.1%), and participating in agricultural work (19.9%). After controlling for age, sex, race, and area of residency, the multivariate analysis identified that between confirmed and unconfirmed cases of leptospirosis reported to the Brazilian national surveillance system, five occupational groups are at higher risk for leptospirosis: garbage and recycling collectors (odds ratio [OR] = 4.10; 95% CI = 3.36-4.99); agricultural, forestry, and fishery workers (OR = 1.65; 95% CI = 1.49-1.84); prisoners (OR = 1.56; 95% CI = 1.04-2.35); building workers (OR = 1.36; 95% CI = 1.22-1.51); cleaners and mining workers (OR = 1.25; 95% CI = 1.07-1.45). This is the first nationwide study to examine leptospirosis risk by occupational group in Brazil using national surveillance data. Our results suggest that among suspected cases there was an increased risk among occupational groups with low income and low educational levels.

Improvement Capacity of Building Worker by Occupational Health and Safety (K3) Training in Tlogo Village

Gotong royong is one of the local wisdoms that reflects the noble values of achieving common goals. Some of the activities carried out in mutual cooperation include; construction of places of worship, irrigation booths, village roads and other public facilities. Sub village (Dusun) Tlogo Kebonagung Imogiri has 5 RTs with 15 residents working as carpenters. With a voluntary spirit and for a common goal, gotong royong often ignores aspects of occupational safety and health (K3). Therefore, it is necessary to seek a way to improve the quality of mutual cooperation through education about the importance of occupational safety and health at work. The proposed solution to overcome this problem is to conduct Occupational Safety and Health (K3) training. The method applied to this capacity building scheme is brainstorming and lesson learning (practice of experiences) on a construction project planned by residents. The technique for managing activities that is applied is Focus Group Discussion (FGD). Based on the method and stages of the program, this community development on capacity building is targeted to have funding in the form of publications in journals/proceedings, mass media, social media

The Impact of Wearable Devices on the Construction Safety of Building Workers: A Systematic Review

Worker safety is a key concern in the construction industry. Making construction safer by reducing safety hazards is critical to sustainably developing the construction industry. Big data, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and other emerging information technologies are deeply integrated within the construction industry. The real-time monitoring of important physiological indicators of the physical state of construction workers is possible with the use of wearable sensing equipment and can pre-emptively give warning of safety hazards. Data mining and analysis of the monitoring data enable an assessment of the safety status of construction workers and can thus reduce potential hazards faced by construction workers on site. This study firstly reviewed the applications of common wearable devices in various industries, focusing on their use in construction safety. Then, CiteSpace 6.1 R4 software was used to visually analyze the literature data related to wearable devices in construction safety. Thirdly, a comprehensive review was conducted on the psychological state and safety evaluation methods of construction workers. Finally, several challenges and future research trends of wearable devices in the construction safety field were discussed. This paper has important theoretical value in advancing the field of construction safety risk management and improving risk control strategies.

Across-Shift Changes in Viable Nasal Bacteria among Waste-Incineration Plant Workers-A Pilot Study.

The aim of this pilot study was to assess the time-related changes in viable nasal bacteria concentrations among waste-incineration plant (WIP) workers compared to a group of office building (OB) workers outside the plant. In total, 20 volunteers participated in the study, including 14 WIP and 6 OB workers. WIP workers were divided into two sub-groups: supervisory staff (SVS) and maintenance and repair workers (MRW). Nasal swabs were collected before and after the morning work shift. Airborne bacteria were sampled with a six-stage impactor to assess the bioaerosol size distribution. The analysis showed that a significant, almost three-fold increase in nasal bacterial concentration was found only among WIP workers, and this referred mainly to anaerobic species. The load of anaerobic bacteria at the beginning of work was 12,988 CFU/mL, and after work shift 36,979 CFU/mL (p < 0.01). Significant increases in microbial concentrations was found only in the MRW subgroup, among non-smoking workers only. The results showed increased bacterial concentration in WIP nasal samples for as many as 12 bacterial species, including, e.g., Streptococcus constellatus, Peptostreptococcus spp., E. coli, and P. mirabilis. These preliminary data confirmed that the nasal swab method was helpful for assessment of the workers’ real-time exposure to airborne bacteria.

Analysis of Safety Behavior of Prefabricated Building Workers’ Hoisting Operation Based on Computer Vision

Safety accidents occur frequently in the construction industry, and unsafe behavior of workers is one of the main reasons for the occurrence of safety accidents. In recent years, the rapid development of emerging technologies has provided effective support for the automatic identification of unsafe behaviors. In particular, computer vision technology does not require equipment to be attached to workers. It has little impact on its operation and can process a large amount of image data in a timely and fast manner. Therefore, it is more suitable for the construction site environment. This study starts from the hoisting operation on the construction site of prefabricated building projects and introduces relevant machine learning methods. Early warning analysis on the safety risk of the tower crane is carried out to complete the hoisting operation of prefabricated components. To suspend dangerous tasks in time according to the warning results, relevant measures are taken and potential risks are eliminated to prevent accidents.

APPLICATION OF Z-TEST OF HYPOTHESIS ON MODELLING GENDER DIFFERENCE IN CRIME INVOLVEMENT BY BUILDING AND CONSTRUCTION WORKERS IN ADAMAWA STATE NIGERIA

The main objective of the study is to examine gender difference in crime involvement by workers in the building and construction industry. Specifically, to show the application of Z-test statistical tool in research. Adamawa state is the area of study and 392 building and construction workers that were convicted for offences of various categories in the area of the study is the population of the study, what is the gender difference in crime involvement by workers in the building and construction industry in Adamawa state? Is the research question. The null hypothesis tested was “there is no significant difference in gender in crime involvement by workers in the building and construction industry in Adamawa State.” The study was based on secondary data extracted from Adamawa State Statistical Year Book 2012 for period of 4 years (20012-2016). Ten crime types that included theft, cheat, trespass, enticement, deformation of character, mischief, force and assault, conspiracy, intimidation, possession of weapons, were considered for the study. The data obtained was analysed and the hypothesis tested using Z-test at 0.05level of significance. The result of the analysis showed that female workers commit less crime than male workers in the building and construction industry in Adamawa state. The study recommended that, there should be Prompt and consistent punishment for male workers offenders so as to help reduce the incidence of male workers crime commitment high rate. Positive motivation of the workers in the building and construction industry in the state was recommended. The significance of the study if published include: 1. Adamawa state building and construction industry managers will benefit from the findings of the study because it had remained them on crime involvement rate by workers in the industry and that may motivate them to include remedies or control measures in the management of their workers. 2. Authors and researchers too, because it will remain them on how and when to apply the Z-test of hypothesis when writing: research reports, journals for publication, and other similar issues. 3. Similar benefit goes to the Building and construction industry stakeholders, in that it can be a source of information to them at home and workplaces on the behaviours of their workers in relation to crime commitment in the industry. 4. Not only the above stated, Building and construction industries workers themselves will learn some lesson when they witness high gravity of punishments being awarded for such offences in the industry as listed above.

Assessing Safety Issues Experienced by Nigerian Building Site Worker

The term Building Worker refers to any personnel engaged in the physical construction of a building. Just like every other occupation they are faced with challenges in performing their duties. The safety of building construction workers on sites is key to achieving success in any project, when these workers are physically healthy work can go on smoothly as virtually all works on site are dependent on the workers for implementation. Numerous building projects are situated in Abuja, Nigeria with little or no attention being paid to safety issues. This research looked into the level of safety implementation of the Construction companies and the level of safety awareness of the workers in Abuja city. 80 questionnaires were issued, 69 (85%) copies were retrieved. The findings revealed that building site workers in Nigeria lacked the requisite trainings needed to perform their trades. The Construction company’s practice of not providing the basic safety materials and facilities was also exposed. The older workers were aware of their rights as employees on site. Lack of safety training was the major cause of accidents among the workers with minor injuries being mostly experienced. The Unqualified laborers were most frequently engaged in accidents on the sites. Accidents mainly occurred among workers less than 20 years of age. The Governmental agencies need to step up their enforcement activities in order to adequately protect these workers, the available safety regulations need updating and if possible solely Nigerian regulations should be designed.

1 oecd National Contact Point, Switzerland: Initial Assessment, Specific Instance regarding LafargeHolcim submitted by Building and Wood Workers’ International, 26 May 2020

1 oecd National Contact Point, Switzerland: Initial Assessment, Specific Instance regarding LafargeHolcim submitted by Building and Wood Workers’ International, 26 May 2020

Characterization and modelling of the sound reduction of hemp-clay walls in buildings

This paper focuses on the sound reduction of light earth at the wall scale. It aims at gaining knowledge and providing informations to professional building workers to help them in the acoustic optimization of biobased walls. Experimentations have been performed in controlled conditions using the intensimetry method, on 22 different samples to investigate thickness effect, wood frame effect, coating effect together with different light earth implementations (shuttering, spraying). These data were then confronted to two modelling approaches, the mass law estimate and a Transfer Matrix Method computation. It is shown that light earth performance can be satisfactorily predicted, whatever the wall configuration using the Transfer Matrix Method computation with isotropic elastic and porous layers. The study brings finally a good understanding of the physical phenomena occurring in biobased concretes, depending on the presence of coatings. For light earth, it also appears that mass law yields to a good approximation of the single-number rating for some configurations including at least one coating.

Labour Codes 2020 from Building Workers Point-of-View

In October 2020, the BJP-controlled Parliament had, in a tearing hurry, passed the remaining three Labour Codes-Industrial Relations Code, Code on Social Security and Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code. The versions of these Codes tabled before the Parliament, were never put out in public domain for comments. The Codes were passed within a day through Lok Sabha without proper debate, and the next day-they were introduced and passed through opposition-boycotted Rajya Sabha. With this, the BJP government has undone many labour law legislations, rights and protections, in the name of mere consolidation exercise. In this piece, attempt is made to scrutinise how the Codes would impact the lives and rights of building workers.

Design of a Sustainable Blockchain-Oriented Software for Building Workers Management

The building workers sector is one of the most challenging for Human Resources (HR) management. In this work we propose a solution relying on the Blockchain technology and present the design of a Blockchain-Oriented Software system conceived for managing the building workers sector with a focus on workers' safety and guided by sustainable and Agile Methodologies in software design. The proposed approach takes advantage of different features of the Blockchain technology and provides transparency for labour inspectors, grants data integrity and immutability, relies in tamper proof time stamps for any recorded activity, allows the implementation of Smart Contracts where clauses are automatically respected without the need of a trusted control authority, acknowledges the legal requirements in the field, including the possibility of creating the Operational Safety Plans, which construction companies have to provide and finally implements the creation of vacant job positions which workers can find and apply to. In order to achieve these goals we adopt the Blockchain-Oriented Software Engineering (BOSE) methodology to design Blockchain software applications and apply an Agile methodology centered on Blockchain Software development, (called ABCDE) for the design and development of the decentralized application. Such methodology allows to center the software development around the actors of the system in the specific domain, such as Building Workers, Construction Companies, Labour Inspectors and so on. In addition we rely on the software sustainability analysis, based on the five dimensions of sustainability, to evaluate the approach and to avoid mistakes in the system development. We design system elements with specific diagrams and we divided our system in the on-chain and the out-of-chain components. The implementation of the system, done by using Ethereum and the ERC721 standard, allows us to improve some aspect of the design, to know the deployment and usage costs, and to evaluate the effect of the user interface. Finally, we discuss about the effects of our system and its sustainability, and provide a comparison of our system with a similar per aims but centralized system.

Placas pleurales por inhalación de fibras de asbesto. Reporte de dos casos y revisión de literatura

Introduction: Asbestos fiber pleural plaque is characterized by lesions composed of fibrous tissue that are located in the parietal pleura. They usually appear in up to 3 to 58% of workers who were exposed to asbestos fiber, and 0.5 to 8% in the general population. The objective of this article is to present two clinical cases of patients who were detected in the chest radiograph pleural alterations associated with exposure to asbestos fibers. Clinical Cases: First case: 49-year-old male patient, buil-ding worker with a history of exposure to asbestos fibers. Focal pleural alterations were detected by a chest x-ray performed according ILO (International Labour Organization) technique. The presence of pleural plaques was confirmed in a computed tomography of the chest. Second case: Holder, without occupational exposure to asbestos fibers. An anteroposterior chest radiography showed the presence of focal pleural plaque in a CT scan of the chest. Conclusion: Chest x-ray with ILO technique is the basic instrument for the identification of diseases related to asbestos fiber exposure. The study should be completed with a CT scan of the chest whose sensitivity is greater, allowing early detection of pleural abnormalities. Detailed occupational history is essential, as it is the most reliable and practical method to measure asbestos fiber exposure.

20 ilo Committee on Freedom of Association: Complaint against the Government of Australia presented by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (actu) supported by Building and Wood Workers’ International (bwi), Case No. 3278, Report in which the committee requests to be kept informed of development – Report No. 388, 14–28 March 2019

20 ilo Committee on Freedom of Association: Complaint against the Government of Australia presented by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (actu) supported by Building and Wood Workers’ International (bwi), Case No. 3278, Report in which the committee requests to be kept informed of development – Report No. 388, 14–28 March 2019