Although builders construct, repair and maintain the physical infrastructure of our societies, work in the most private spaces of our homes and workplaces, and while we rely on and trust their achievements in almost every moment of social life, the academic world has tended to notice only buildings, their designs and design technologies but not the labour of the builders themselves (Thiel: 1).
The rapidly urbanising population spends the majority of its life in and around buildings. Our bodies are contained and marshalled by walls, floors and ceilings; we manoeuvre ourselves through streets and cityscapes, around houses and offices, through doors and up sets of stairs. And yet, we rarely think about the physical construction of these common features of our world. If we do think or speak about them, it is usually to comment on their design, focusing on the architects and spatial/interior designers who masterminded them. In “Builders: class, gender and ethnicity in the construction industry”, – Thiel explains how contemporary society separates the design of a building from its construction; the “brains” who design buildings are willfully disconnected from the “bodies” which build them, through the different job roles of architect and builder. And, whilst we spend some time considering the work of an architect, we rarely, if ever discuss the work of builders. And, bearing in mind not only that our lives are filled with buildings but also that a large proportion of most economies’ workforces are employed in or by the building trade (“5 – 10% of almost every labour market in the world”, Thiel: ix), this is an enormous oversight.
As such, this book provides a fascinating and long-overdue insight into the work of builders. In it, the author focuses on a large-scale building renovation project of “Keyworker House”, a key worker housing estate in Greater London. The renovation was run by “Topbuild” and involved a large number of subcontracted trades, including painters, bricklayers, labourers, carpenters, electricians, quantity surveyors, site managers and other associated workers. Thiel gives a detailed ethnographic account of the people he worked with and the stories he heard during nearly a year in the field.
During his research, Thiel moved around a variety of roles, variously acting as labourer, participant observer (of both the site and the office) and interviewer. He tells us in the early pages of the book that this is not a new environment to him; he worked as a labourer for some extra money when he was younger. It may be for this reason that Thiel is able to present such a candid and convincing portrayal of the world of these builders. Having just undergone two years’ worth of renovation work to my own house, I found myself comparing the actions of our builders to the reported actions of Topbuild builders and the similarities were striking. In particular, the way that Thiel characterises the trade-specific subcontractors and their conversations, as well as the synonyms that he gives them (the decorator he calls Ernie Coats; the carpenter is called Norman Sparks and so forth) feel extremely real. As such a high proportion of the workforce is builders. I am unlikely to be alone in being able to compare – the book's to my own experiences, and thus also unlikely to be the only person who feels a strong sense of recognition when reading it.
The book's title – stresses three key themes: gender, class and ethnicity. Thiel strikingly interweaves discussions of these themes with other key sociological/organisational themes as well as with information about the social, cultural and economic history of the building trade. For example, in relation to ethnicity, Thiel reveals how the men became builders and found work, using as a starting point the “ethnic trade-clustering” that occurred at Keyworker House; each trade's subcontractor's workforce had a specific national/cultural origin. At this particular site, it meant that all labourers were Irish or Irish descendants living in the London Borough of Lambeth; the carpenters were all Gujarati Hindus (living in London Borough of Brent). This clustering occurs because subcontractor-managers recruit from their own local, cultural community networks. As well as being able to “do favours” and improve their social standing through being recruiters, subcontractors also reported that it “afforded [them] a modicum of certainty to the skill and character of [their] employees” (p. 26).
This research usefully highlights the longstanding significance of “networking” for the building community. Thiel uses socio-historic data to show how the building trade has relied on informal networking for at least 300 years. Business practice and research both have the tendency to try to find new ways to make profit, and exploiting one's informal network is certainly a current trend. We might use Thiel's research to reflect on whether this type of networking is really particularly “trendy”, or whether it has always been fundamental – at least in particular occupations – and it is just that social media has facilitated us in remembering its importance.
Gender and class are the two other “main themes” of the book, with each being dealt with both in a specific chapter and interwoven throughout the other parts of the book. Thiel shows how the builders mobilise and relate to clear gendered and class-bound identities in the way that they think about themselves, each other and work. Their jobs are seen as “strong” and “dirty”, making them masculine and working class. This is not work to be done by “gentlemen” or by women, whose upbringing will not have taught them how to espouse the values of the working class male. The author again uses a concise and yet well-researched socio-historical account to explain how working class boys learn to do this kind of work at school, where they learn how to “piss around” and realise that the opportunities for them to move into a “clean” occupation are extremely limited, due to a lack of class mobility and few opportunities outside their immediate informal network.
Perhaps one of Thiel's most powerful arguments, dispersed throughout the book, is how, whilst these builders might have much in common with one another, this is a workspace that does not see itself as a collectivity. It is a very hostile, aggressive environment in which most tradesmen see “getting one over” on someone else as one of the most satisfying parts of their job:
“Any semblance of a broad class collectivity was fractured by gender and ethnic divisions, competition over jobs, housing and women, and, importantly, ethnic and status distinctions between the trades” (p. 102).
The need for posturing and displays of strength and masculinity are attributable not just to the class and gender-bound identities of the builders, according to Thiel. Rather, they are bound to the difficulties of invoking formal law to solve disputes. Due to the number of tax dodges taking place on a building site at any one time, “legal” ways of dealing with arguments are not open to the builders. Therefore, “the performance and posturing of strength and toughness were instrumental – functioning to underpin lore. Yet these practices were also counterproductive. Largely unprotected by formal legal mechanisms, fear of both real and symbolic forms of violence provoked the enactment of masculine styles and stimulated a fear of violence, and which motivated masculine styles as a response” (p. 116-117). It is possible to read this as a symptom of the subcontracted nature of the building site, in which illegal practices can more easily be hidden in the supply chain, just as we have seen in relation to the horse meat debacle in Europe in early to mid-2013.
In addition to the convincing work – in discussing gender, class and ethnicity, there is more of interest within this book. Chapter 4 particularly stands out, being concerned with how the workforce relates to and deals with time within and through their work. He presents a beautiful account by one builder of how he deals with the length of the days by dividing his time into sections and thinking that there are only four sections to the day. He discusses how builders evidence their autonomy by not working too quickly and managers allow them this because they believe that, by showing the builders this respect, they will be able to count on them when they do need them to do “hurry up”, which involves working at a much higher rate to complete a time critical task (moving materials before another delivery is brought in, for example). In this chapter, there is also a rare example of Thiel bringing his own participation into the frame for analysis; he describes how he tries to embody the informal lore of the building site when painting window frames: you should work slightly slower than the fastest man, again showing the autonomy afforded the builders. He also explains how builders make use of recreational drugs – either because they can learn to do the job whilst on them so it attracts these types of workers, or because the drugs help them to pass the time and get into the rhythm of the task. Such rhythm sometimes allows builders to escape their body for a moment, as though they were in a drug-induced state. Building work has survived increased pressures on work rates due to the nature of buildings: they are complicated, require skilled labour and cannot be built in factories. Where the other chapters made me nod my head in recognition of what I had observed, this chapter provides insight into the “hearts and minds” of the builders, which are less readily on display to most. In its wide-ranging coverage of time-related topics, would be an excellent standalone reading for a class on the sociology of time or similar teaching.
Despite Thiel's considerable coverage of a wide range of topics, one goes largely unnoticed: the physical space of Keyworker House and the building project. There is a clear characterisation of the site office, but this is not accompanied by a more detailed description of the physicality of the building site itself. Considering Thiel's striking portrayals of the site office and of the tradesmen themselves, to be missing any sense of the physicality of the building site itself is a limitation. Thiel provides tantalising glimpses into the nature of the site. It is presented as noisy with walkie-talkies being necessary to communicate orders, as trying to find people can be impossible; it is a site being worked on whilst people are still in residence which can lead to conflict; and it is a site which is being renovated. But I could gain so little sense of the tangible qualities of the site and its specific nature that it is hard to place the characters in their environment or to understand how the space might shape the builders’ actions. Just as the writers before have looked at buildings but not at builders, here the builders are considered but to some degree at the expense of the buildings.
This is not to detract from the quality of the book as it stands. It is a well-written, exceptionally well-researched piece of work which makes for satisfying and valuable reading. It talks about a subject that is so commonplace that it is often occluded from view, and does so in a way which is characterful and surprising. It feels as though it provides real insight into an occupation which Thiel, due to his previous work as a labourer, may be able to access, relate to and ultimately present in a sympathetic and appropriate way – a skill which would likely elude many other writers.
