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A temporary worker in the Christchurch rebuild has alleged shocking health and safety lapses during his time there earlier this year. Ferdinand Schuster, a 20-year-old German student on his gap year, told Critic that he had been put at risk and injured due to unsafe practices on a number of Christchurch building sites.

Schuster started working in Christchurch in January, and says he was immediately exposed to dangerous practices on sites that he was sent to by the temporary labour agency Allied Work Force (AWF). When assigned to a concrete job in Darfield at 4am one morning, Schuster said the gumboots he was issued for the job were too short, and resulted in wet concrete touching and burning his skin. “You don’t even feel it, but after the work I had two massive wounds on my legs.” Seven months later, scars from the incident remain visible.

On another occasion, Schuster and a friend were tasked with cleaning up a building site containing Pink Batts. “It was just a few rooms filled with rubbish and insulation … the air was just full with dust, which is not healthy for you.” The pair was only issued with gloves and dust masks after stating that they would not start work without them.

Schuster alleges that at another worksite, he was made to drive a roller, despite having no previous experience or licence. He said that his worst experience was when “they gave me a jackhammer and said I should make a hole in the concrete floor. They don’t give me glasses, so the guy said ‘yeah just start like that,’ showed it to me [for] like a second and I was, ‘alright,’ did it one second and recognised, fucking hell, if I would do that, without safety glasses … I would be blind.”

To add insult to injury, Schuster claims that he and other workers were denied the return of part of an equipment bond they paid. “They say, ‘oh you didn’t give us back some of our equipment.’ Which is a lie, and they just do that with I don’t know how many people, and you can do nothing. … I don’t want to know how much money they make with it.” Schuster told Critic that he had heard of other cases of health and safety lapses besides his own, and believed that excessive equipment bonds had also been taken from other workers.

When contacted by Critic, AWF’s Canterbury and West Coast Manager Ray Cuthill denied that such a bond was taken from workers, and said that workers were only charged if they “took off” with equipment. He said he suspected he knew which company Ferdinand may have been working for when he received his concrete burns, but refused to name them.

Cuthill said he was unaware of the safety lapses alleged by Schuster, but encouraged him to contact AWF about his “upsetting and disturbing” allegations, saying “we send workers to clients and expect them to treat them as if they were their own workers, their own sons and daughters. We don’t expect them to put them at any risk.” Cuthill refused to comment further until he had been contacted by Schuster.

The Labour Party’s labour spokesperson, Darien Fenton, described Schuster’s allegations as “bloody disgraceful.” Fenton has previously argued that a lack of labour inspectors and health and safety inspectors – which number 35 and fewer than 100 respectively for the entire country – could be contributing to such lapses in health and safety.

Fenton said government restructuring meant the inspectorate was stretched, telling Critic, “I question how we can be making sure that workers are safe or their rights are being considered when we have such a run-down workforce.” Asked if she thought labour inspectors could have prevented Mr. Schuster’s concrete injury, she agreed that this was unlikely, but also blamed the government for making it harder for workers to raise health and safety issues at work.

Fenton said that “workers’ rights go hand in hand with health and safety at work.” She believed that the introduction of a 90-day trial period by the government had discouraged workers from raising health and safety issues for fear of losing their jobs.

Minister of Labour Simon Bridges was unavailable for an interview. In a written statement he told Critic that while he could not comment on individual cases, “I take reports of alleged workplace health and safety failings seriously, as does the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment. Anyone with concerns should be immediately reporting them to the Ministry’s Health and Safety Group.”

The Minister called Fenton’s concerns about labour inspectors “ill-founded,” saying seven health and safety inspectors were working in the Canterbury region, and that an operational structure launched in July would increase that figure.

Bridges said $11 million of funding over four years would be put towards supporting programmes to implement the “aspirational commitments” of the Canterbury Rebuild Safety Charter – a voluntary agreement between employers and government agencies to try and encourage safe workplaces. Some of the Charter’s articles include “2. We have systems in place to encourage and support worker engagement in health and safety,” and “8. PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) is worn at all times by everyone. No exceptions. No excuses.” AWF, which employed Schuster, is listed as one of the Charter’s supporters.

Ron Angel, the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union’s (EPMU) national industry organiser for building and construction, told Critic that “we are hearing more and more stories of people who are employed as temps facing similar sorts of issues, a lack of health and safety.” Other issues included migrant workers who had seen their hourly wages drop from $26 to $22 per hour after being brought in by a company.

Angel said that while joining a union was “not the solution” for many temporary workers, the EPMU and its associate organisation, Safe Rebuild, were trying to raise such issues with primary contractors and project managers by holding employers to the Charter.

Another of the Charter’s articles states that “All workers will receive basic health and safety training prior to starting work.” In this regard at least, Schuster’s experience conformed to the Charter. He was charged $80 by AWF for a one-day course run by the company. “I am told after I get the health and safety course then I will get the full-time job that they promised me.”

He described it as “five hours’ wasted time … a ridiculous card with ‘health and safety,’ and it changed nothing.” After completing exercises – including a dice game in which an incorrect roll resulted in death – workers completed a test by answering questions together. Nobody failed.