Restructure Training for 2010

Wow, is it really the end of the year again? Despite, or perhaps because of, a turbulent and punishing year the time seems to have simply flown by. However, soon after you read this we can start talking about 2009 in the past tense and hopefully move on to new and lucrative projects.

Ah, there’s that word, ‘lucrative’. It seems everybody was talking about money throughout November. Aside from all the ‘restructuring’ stuff in the papers, a poll on our constructionweekonline.com website suggested that pretty much everybody was either owed money, either by people not paying contractors for their jobs… or the contractors not paying their staff for months on end.

This leads me to my next point. We also got the results in of our salary survey, which had been conducted over several months. Now, the survey was supposed to be for ‘construction professionals’ and it yielded the unsurprising result that all respondents feel they are underpaid (well, nobody is ever going to say they get too much, are they?) and that some nationalities get paid less for doing the same job.

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What struck me was the lack of responses from heavy machinery operators or technicians. I suspect that had any of them taken part in the survey it would have brought the average wage down considerably. Why would this be? After all, we entrust them to perform skilled and complex operations with millions of dollars worth of equipment on a daily basis. Yet for the most part they get paid only a little more than their unskilled labour counterparts, and are afforded few opportunities for extra training and development.

In the US, it is considered a great job to be able to drive a loader or a shovel, and plenty of working Americans make a good living from it. There is also an industry-sponsored organisation called NAHETS providing training right through an operators career path. Let’s hope we see the same happing here soon.

PS: While I’m on the subject of drivers, if anybody knows Babu Sassi, or any of the other high level crane operators on the Burj Dubai, please get in touch. We would love to hear their story ahead of the January opening of the supertall building.