HAVE you ever had the (mis)fortune to attend a music festival and made use of the facilities, standing in line for an hour or more for the pleasure of entering a plastic box full of chemicals and effluent that’s been baking in the hot sun?
If you have, you’ll doubtless be ever-so-eager to bring just a taste of that experience to the forest. Or perhaps not.
Either way, it’s the law and one that is now more commonly being complied with. That doesn’t mean contractors are happy about having welfare units on site or ever intend to use them.
Recently, on the Forest Machine Operators Blog, one member had cause to ask others what they were doing to meet the requirements.
He said: “After several months of being sat at home due to wildlife issues I’m finally back in the game! Been on private ground the last couple years and haven’t been asked for welfare. Back on Commission ground and they would like me to provide welfare again. What is the absolute bare minimum I need to provide? I’ve actually heard of someone with a tent and a portaloo inside!”
Answers ranged from the most basic, such as “a shovel and a poncho and a role of paper on a string” (which we don’t think would meet HSE requirements), to the more luxurious.
The most common suggestion was a cheap caravan, with others opting for portable toilets with hot water and ex-council welfare vans.
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One Welsh contractor said: “We just rent a portaloo and have hot water you can wash to the elbows with. Can even fit that in a van and satisfies NRW.”
Another member said: “I bought a portaloo and welded a grab cage around it and installed a hot washer for hands inside. Not pretty, but cheap and ticked the boxes.”
Opting for something a little less labour-intensive, one member advised: “Get a welfare van. FLS pays you £50 per day to have one on site.”
Another said: “We have a welfare van now that on some jobs we are required to provide welfare. In this case we charge them so we are getting paid for the van to get us to work. I’d be holding back some timber to cover the cost. It’s very rarely used other than for doing the paperwork in and having lunch on a wet day. It has helped us win jobs so it’s fine by me.”
Of course, the subject of welfare units remains a sore one with many forestry workers, including one who commented: “I have had two welfare units stolen and one torched, all on FLS sites and they still insist on them being in place even where one has been stolen.”
Such circumstances would make a portable music festival toilet a more attractive option to us (so to speak). Can’t imagine anyone wanting to steal one of those!
One member groaned: “Welfare…. the biggest waste of money we’ve had to endure in our industry. If you’ve a gang grafting on the ground, exposed to the elements daily, then yes. But for a standard harvester/forwarder gang? Pointless in my opinion.”
Another replied: “Don’t know any operators who want to leave their warm cabs and reclining, heated seat to sit on a wooden bench in a tin hut. Well, not me anyway.”
Concerned by the original poster’s focus on providing the “absolute bare minimum”, one commenter weighed in: “Obviously you do not understand the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. Where it says you must provide your employees with adequate facilities for welfare that you create somewhere to eat and drink provide water and toilet facilities.
So just providing a portaloo in a tent is not adequate enough. Best thing to do is provide them with a welfare van or trailer.”
The post’s author responded: “I think in the woods, it’s so much bloody hassle to have the luxury of having lunch inside the welfare facility that most contractors more or less park it on site and throw away the key! I know literally dozens of contractors using old caravans. I think it’s more a case of which company you’re working for and their discretion.”
He was further advised: “Just remember you are breaking the law and can be prosecuted under the Health and Safety at work etc. Act 1974. And as an employee you can get a £20,000 fine and up to two years’ imprisonment. As an employer, it’s unlimited prison, sentences and unlimited fines, so if you want to play that game carry on. I was just advising you.”
We’re not entirely convinced by the assertion an employer who fails to provide welfare facilities could end up being sentenced to ‘unlimited prison’, but then again we’re not lawyers, so better to be safe than sorry.
It’s clear many are now taking the same view, to the surprise (and delight?) of subcontractors.
One operator carrying out thinning with an Alstor 831 posted a pic of his machine sitting alongside the new portable toilet that had been provided for him. He told the Blog: “The welfare carry-on has even filtered down to one-man bands now. They were quite insistent and ordered it and paid for it. Oh well, 10 minutes a day passed contemplating life I suppose.”
A member responded: “Still rather lean up against a tree than get in a sauna with the smell of rotting, warm...” Well, we can’t print the whole comment here.
Probably best to leave the welfare discussion there. There was something else causing equal amounts of irritation on the Blog this month. One post from a harvester driver regarding his current job began: “To the company that planted trees with metal rods...”
Again, we can’t print the full quote in these pages, but the message he wanted to send was... not a happy one.
A range of members could sympathise, having been there themselves. Comments included:
“Yep, we had a wood like that to thin. Couldn’t believe it. Can’t see the rods as they’re rusty and grown into the trees. Nightmare!”
“Nightmare. Had a job like that a few years back. Must have done about 10 chains in.”
“Had a site with a load of hazel to clear. Metal rods in every one. My sentiments where exactly the same!”
“In the early ’80s it was a metal rod to hold the supposedly biodegradable tube. A small, rubber grommet was what held the tube down. Them were the days. Great spears though.”
“Grown in, can’t pull them out, can’t see them. As an even bigger bonus they seem to be made of the strongest steel known to man!”
“Removed thousands of them rods. They were one pence cheaper than a wooden stake, I was told. Cost them 30p a unit to remove, if you could get them out.”
“According to most people I never had that problem cause I always left my stumps nice and high ‘just in case’.”
“I have found all kinds of foreign objects doing tree work. Always a pain.”
Talking of ‘foreign objects’, how about a Yamaha R1 motorbike, as was recently discovered by one member on a stroll through the woods.
Lost? Stolen? Hidden from the wife? Members had many different theories as to how it ended up there and were keen to share stories of their own unusual discoveries, from strange animal skulls and washing machines to diggers and classic cars.
If you’ve got your own story to tell or would like to get involved in the discussion, you can do so on the Forest Machine Operators Blog on Facebook.
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