Falling down a hole: zero accidents and workers’ acceptance of risk

Construction site safety campaigns, for example, ‘zero accidents’, pursue a goal, either genuinely or fantastically, for the way construction sites should perform. Critics accuse these lofty goals of being unrealistic to the everyday working nature of construction which is inherent with hazards. When construction site accidents do occur the moment of harm is invariably instantaneous. Witnessing these events first hand as a researcher is a rare occurrence. While undertaking a short-term ethnography on a building site the author observed a minor accident and captured it with a video camera. This data allows an analysis of the way the workers accepted the accident, entirely avoidable as it was, as a mundane and accepted feature of everyday site practice. Prior to the accident there were no control measures, physical or managerial, to the obvious and avoidable hazard. Workers managed it through their wit and site sense. The injured worker, an apprentice, was lacking both. Post-accident there was no aftermath. This highly skilled group of construction workers had a domain of influence giving them autonomy over their work practice. Freedom from management control will continue to frustrate safety campaigns as workers accept the everyday hazards of construction work. Likewise, researchers may reconsider the agency of workers in controlling their working environment.