Site and workshop staff are treated differently: a fix for fabrication units

The erection gang returns after five weeks bolting up a warehouse frame far from home. They are sunburnt, owed bhatta, and sore about misaligned cleats that cost them days of reaming holes with a borrowed magnetic drill. Back in the yard, fitters have heard that the site lads drew cash daily and slept in a hotel. Actually they shared a tin porta-cabin with a leaking roof and a mess cook who left midweek. Each crew now believes the other got the sweeter bargain.

The patterns page for fabrication units lists this divide. It recurs in structural yards, among stainless kitchen installers and with enclosure makers who fit panels on customer premises. Money is only part of it. The bigger part is that nobody wrote the rules down.

• Postings are announced the evening before, and certain names always seem to be on the list.
• Bhatta, room rent and ration money are agreed by phone, trip by trip, with no paper.
• A night on a sleeper berth is paid as work for one gang and as leave for another.
• A misfit found while the mobile crane holds a rafter is blamed on the yard, and the yard blames the drawing.
• The client's engineer praises the site foreman, so thanks flow one way.
• Yard fitters report sick the week a long posting is due.

Erection dates slip when the right riggers and bolters will not board the bus. Settlement quarrels on return swallow the owner's week. Quiet resentment in the yard shows up as slower fit-up and careless bolt-hole marking, which returns as drift pins and gas-cut slots on site. Seasoned erectors defect to contractors who at least state terms clearly. And the yard never learns from site trouble, because the two crews barely talk.

• Every trip is a fresh deal. The owner settles terms by feel, so no two gangs get the same arrangement.
• Site hours go unrecorded. Nobody keeps a muster out there, so twelve-hour days and short days look identical afterwards.
• Journey days are undefined. An overnight train may count as work, as rest, or as nothing.
• Credit follows the client. Whoever stands beside the client engineer gets thanked; the fitter who marked the base plates does not.
• Misfits end in blame, not review. Without a joint look at the drawing, the marking and the erection sequence, each side keeps its own story.
• No rotation. The same willing few go every time, and the reluctant never learn to work with slings, taglines or a torque wrench.

• Collect the terms each gang actually received on its last three postings, from accounts and from the foremen.
• Check how journey days, rest days and site hours were counted on each.
• List who has been posted out recently and who never has.
• Pull the latest misfit complaints and note who was blamed and on what evidence.
• Ask yard and site crews separately what they think the other side earns.

Journey: mode, who books tickets, and how a journey day is counted.
Lodging: shared room standard, bedding, mosquito nets, drinking water and washroom.
Food: a company mess with a cook, or ration money paid in advance.
Hours: normal day on site, weekly rest day, and how extra hours are mustered.
Daily bhatta: one basis for every gang, stated in writing.
Advance before departure, and settlement within an agreed number of days after return.
Kit issued: full-body harness, double lanyard, helmet with chin strap, safety shoes, gloves.
In charge on site: the named foreman, and whom he rings at the office.
Family emergencies: how a worker gets home quickly and who pays the fare.
Rotation: the longest unbroken posting before a home break.

1. 1

   Draft the policy with both crews in view

   Fill the template with what you can sustain, then read it out to the yard and to each gang. Objections come now, not on the next trip.

2. 2

   Start a posting roster

   Sort site-capable workers by trade and send them in turn. Pair a yard fitter with a seasoned erector on his first trip.

3. 3

   Muster site hours daily

   The foreman sends a photo of the attendance sheet each evening. Settlement then rests on a record, not on memory.

4. 4

   Hold a joint misfit review

   Yard fitter, site foreman and detailer study the drawing, the marking and the erection sequence together, inside a week of the complaint.

5. 5

   Share the credit

   When a client praises a job, name the yard crew that marked and welded it as well as the gang that erected it.

6. 6

   Settle on time

   Pay the bhatta balance within the stated days. Late settlement undoes a policy faster than any rumour.

Yards that erect their own steel feel this hardest. See HR for structural steel yards and mustering site attendance and leave in a structural yard. Stainless installers who fit kitchens on client premises face a manners question too, covered in customer handling for stainless fitting crews. Bhatta design belongs to our work on pay structures and rewards. And a contractor that lost its gang between phases shows what follows when site crews feel forgotten.

A first posting deserves its own briefing. Cover the client's gate pass and permit routine, and harness clipping on steelwork. Show how loads are slung and signalled, and what to do if the foreman is away. Explain how his bhatta is worked out before he boards the bus. A decent first trip is the strongest reason a yard fitter agrees to a second.