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Men and women share toilets on nearly 1 in 5 sites

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Comments

  1. A change from the old days of the trench with a pole and a bag of lime or the pile segment with a toilet seat attachment on top plus the bag of lime.

    Might be worth reading ‘The Specialist’ a very serious dissertation by a privy builder (made it to the big screen as a ‘B’ film). Included one of the earliest time and motion studies (for a local farmer).

    When I started work on one of the sites that I worked on my Senior Surveyor was changed for one of the few (at that time) ladies in that profession (clever lady – had to wait until she was 21 to put her letters up). She was complaining on site about being paid less than her male colleagues (mostly over 20 years older). In order for her to visit the site our employer dictated we hire a Portaloo for her on each of the five sites she visited. £296 a year each, at that time her salary would have been around £1,000 a year. A bit more economic with more women in the industry now no doubt. Any one thought of equal cost (not just the salary), if the government takes this too far it could result in smaller firms operating on smaller sites choosing staff on a cost basis. As they say “be careful what you wish for”.

  2. I work for one of the large remaining construction companies, we put a lot of effort in to ensuring that welfare facilities are cleaned every day, fresh drinking water available on the site.
    Ladies toilets are standard on all our sites.
    After all that I will say I am so frustrated when I look at how the site operatives ABUSE the toilets you feel like shooting down the toilets and letting them use the hedge/go and find somewhere else to use.

  3. No excuse for poor or dirty facilities (which is actually luxury for those of us that used to live in a cardboard box (ask an older colleague)). However, unisex toilets are now being considered in many new designs. There is no reason why one (adequate and clean) facility should not be considered on site. This obviously only applies to larger sites, single toilets will still be a problem.

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