"They only do it because they're allowed to get away with it..."

It can't be denied anymore - the shortage of time served tradesmen (or should that be tradesperson in these enlightened times) has led to a massive increase in unqualified site workers. A recent survey has confirmed the long held suspicion that the qualified site tradesman is now a dwindling commodity. The study reveals that for every 1000 carpenters found operating on site during the year 2005, just over one in three of that number - 377 to be precise - was a qualified tradesperson. Another disturbing tend to emerge from the findings is that far from seeking out the true professional during times of a recession as one might expect, the exact opposite was found to be true, the move being justified by a number of employers on financial grounds. Are we to be surprised then at these findings? - I don't think so. There can be no doubt that successive years of chronic under funding have contributed exponentially to the crisis that we find before us in the building Industry today. That old saying of what you sow, so shall you reap has never been more apt. To put the record straight, there always have been, just as there always will be, certain individuals who are prepared to step into the breach to fill the labour shortages that have been known to afflict the Construction Industry from time to time. But let's be quite clear about this: the reason that these 'cowboys'* are growing in number is because they are being allowed to fill the void created by the loss of the qualified worker. And who can blame them for trying? Nobody should ever have the right to deny anybody else the opportunity to earn a living providing that they can get away with it. And that, surely, has to be the key point here - the very fact that they can and do get away with it all too often! *Do you know why they call them cowboys? ....it's because of the trail that they leave behind them! Paradoxically, it is the actions of these cowboys that give us hope for the future. Far from decrying the activities of these 'chancers', what we should be doing is congratulating them instead for drawing our attention towards the sad decline of standards that exists at the present time. The knock on effect of their actions is to force us to take a look long hard look at what is happening in the Construction Industry today. Armed with this knowledge we can, if we choose not to ignore it(as has happened so often in the past), take the opportunity to make plans to improve on the current situation and secure the construction industry's future for generations to come. That brings us to the question of how best to go about it? Well the first thing is to do is get rid of the patently false idea that an easy solution is just waiting around the corner - you don't need to be a clairvoyant to know that isn't going to happen! The long term view is that only a sustained effort over a lengthy period of time, let's say 8 years, would be enough to completely reverse things as they stand today. But what of the short term? Is there nothing we can do now that will help bring that date a little bit closer? In my view, the answer is a resounding yes! The first course or action must be for the Government to reintroduce a suitable training scheme to encourage those that want to learn the trade the opportunity to do just that. Getting the legislation passed won't be an easy task I grant you, but as long as the impetus exists to drive it through there is no real reason why the scheme couldn't be up and running within a year. Wishful thinking perhaps? - far from it! Providing it was conducted in the right way I see no reason why we couldn't be seeing the results of this initiative on site within as little as 3 years. The second responsibility lies with the construction companies themselves. If all of the main contractors adopted a policy of only employing qualified tradespeople, (or alternatively, those with provable experience), and made a point of rejecting sub-standard work, it would undoubtedly go a long way to restoring the industry's credibility. Based as it is on a rather simplistic view of the problems faced by the Industry, I'd have to agree that the latter suggestion isn't really a practical alternative - the very nature of things conspire to make it unworkable. We find ourselves in a catch 22 situation of our own making - how can the Construction Industry recruit their labour from a force that no longer exists? The answer to that of course, is that it can't! My own modest contribution to the future regenerating of the industry (and once again I stand indebted to the cowboys for making it possible), is The Carpentry Insider, a site practice manual compiled from my own 28 years in the game. It was written in the hope that it would at least go someway toward closing the gap that exists between those tradesmen who already have the experienced knowledge and those many individuals who seek to attain it!