HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

In international construction projects it seems to be usual that the staff for the management of the total project including the site management is posted by the companies who perform the project, whereas the labour force for the work on site - except some few specialists - is recruited locally6. This was also the case in Friedrichstadtpassage. CBC as Generalübernehmer and Maculan as Generalunternehmer had sent their own personnel to Berlin. Operatives for the site works were almost entirely recruited locally - with the remarkable difference from the other cases in the sample of our study, that none of these workers was local. In fact they came from different countries all over Europe (Interviews 5/7/94 and 15/12/94). CBC’s representatives confirmed that for a firm engaged in a construction project abroad, it was normal to fill all key positions with their own em-ployees. So they installed an fairly large office in Berlin consisting of all staff necessary for their project management. The same was the case with Macu-lan, who brought their site management from Austria. This consisted of the chief site manager and his assistant, and five site managers responsible for iron, concrete, programme, and (two of them) for the budget. A senior foreman and foremen for each trade also came from Maculan. As far as CBC is concerned, they complained that it is more and more difficult to find people to go abroad to run construction projects. Diffe-rences were noticed between staff for performing infrastructure pro-jects and those for building projects. Staff for infrastructure projects are used to follow projects, rather than companies, so that a sufficient mo-bility can be attained. For building projects, mobility is considered to be too low. On the other hand they have found some young engineers, even if not enough, who form some kind of a "European staff" - bi- or trilingual, mobile, and active-ly looking for the chance to go abroad. But although the big construction bu-siness is in Eastern Europe (including the former GDR), it is more difficult to find people ready to got to the east (including the former GDR again), because a stay in the eastern countries is remarkably less attractive than in a western one. The posting of personnel below the level of foreman is rare. The main reason is the high cost. Workers in many countries receive special payments, if daily return home is not possible, which increases labour cost above the competitive level. On the other hand, workers usable for site work, are more or less everywhere available, particularly if work for reinforced concrete is required, where the level of skills required is much lower than for other construction works. A special condition for the recruitment of workers for construction sites in Germany was established after 1989, when the borders opened in Eastern Europe too. Pushed by the sharp deterioration of living conditions in their home countries and pulled by the huge demand for labour, in particular in construction, many of them went west. Additionally inside the EU Portugal became a big deliverer of labour towards German construction sites. Not all of the migrant workers were legally in Germany or had legal working contracts. Also on the sites of Friedrichstadtpassage most of the workers were locally recruited, but few of them were German. They came from Middle and Eastern Europe or from the southern part of the EU. The exceptions were two gangs from the Austrian and East German subsidiaries of Maculan respectively. Each worker had a single contract with Maculan so that recruiting and dismissing are easy for the company. It was stated that because these sites were in an exposed place, and strictly regarded by the public no illegal work was used. But the newspapers reported control actions by German officials, who found numerous workers without the working permission required (Die Tageszeitung 24/11/93). The IG Bau-Steine-Erden (the German Construction Workers Trade Union) was said to look for their people and for the agreements of the others. Gangs for the works subcontracted were formed homogenously, so that each gang, including their foremen, was from a different country: formwork for the ceilings: Portuguese (70 workers) formwork, steel and concrete works for the walls by Italian and former Yugoslavian (together 70 workers) and by Austrian and (East) German (25 workers each) workers. transport on site and cleaning: Hungarian, Czech, and Yugoslavian (20 workers). Maculan staff reported that none of the workers (except the Austrian) had been trained or experienced in site work on a project of this size and nature; even the East German workers lacked knowledge of this type of work organisation and the technology in use. The workers from Eastern and Southern Europe mainly came from rural areas, seeking work on site because they cannot earn their living by agricultural work. So intensive training was required, which was performed on the job. But before a training process could begin, a sharp selection had to take place. To recruit about 70 workers, Maculan employed and inspected around 400. They were tested for a week on site, after which 330 were dismissed again. "Those, who stay, really work well", explained the chief site manager. The daily work then was again a continuous training on the job and was estimated to lead to an adequate level of skills for iron and concrete works on big projects. The workers were regarded as being well qualified after having worked on a site like this. Work organisation is crucial under these conditions and the qualification and engagement demands on foreman are extremely high. While gangs have their internal structure which partly can used for self regulation, meeting the programme schedules and controlling the quality of the work is the responsibility of the foremen alone. Quality can only be as good as the foreman. The foremen themselves act under the control of the responsible site managers. This type of work leads to divergent forms of working time. Regular working time on site was reported with about 250 (paid) hours per month; about 80 hours more than regular working time under German construction collectively bargained regulation. Daily working time was from 7.00 a.m. to 8.00 p.m., and if necessary from 6.00 a.m. to 10.00 p.m; German labour law forbids work of more than ten hours a day. Shift work was avoided, because this was esti-mated to be too expensive. The Austrian workers were reported to have a rhythm of three weeks of work and one week of holiday. Regulation for the workers from the other countries are not reported, but an interruption of paid work by holiday was hardly in their interest. Payment was strictly on performance by square metre or tonne. Workers were reported to reach about 10.000 DM per month before taxes; though it is unclear to whom taxes should have been paid. This may not be less than a German worker would have earned under similar conditions (working time, payment by performance). However in the German's case, not only taxes, but also social insurance fees are obligatory and paid by deduction and direct payment to the respective social institutions. And as the sum of 10.000 DM for about 250 hours represents a hourly rate of about 40 DM, it is less than two thirds of the total labour cost payable by a construction company under German legal and collectively bargained conditions, which include payment for the legal social security system and fees for the sector's education and training system and for the construction workers' holiday and pension funds. To obey health and safety matters is - in the words of the chief site mana-ger - for a site like this "essential". Nevertheless he added that to fulfill all the regulations required is too expensive. A person responsible for health and safety (Sicherheitsbeauftragter) as prescribed by German law was named, but this was not organised as a full-time job. All newcomers were trained in safety regulations followed by freshening up knowledge and consciousness through a short briefing (of three to four hours) one day per month. Additionally, foremen were responsible for health and safety, and were fined in the case of accidents. Since the work on site started, "six or seven" accidents were report-ed, which is claimed to be below the stochastic level. The main problems regarding safety were language and mentality, because even foreign foremen only know a few fragments of "site-language".