The pandemic has affected the construction industry in a big way. Maybe the contractors themselves are not so affected especially those who have big savings, but the cease of work has affected the lowly workers big time. As we all can see in the news, some workers have to walk hundreds of kilometers just to get home because they couldn’t find transportation and even if their contractors want to help them – they also couldn’t get past the quarantine checkpoints. Some workers also expressed disappointment at their contractors who seemed to have abandoned them in their difficulties. We can see workers stuck in the construction sites with no food supply. This is especially true for contractors who don’t have a lot of savings and could no longer extend help to their workers. The pandemic has exposed a lot of things in the construction industry especially on the fact that small time contractors have very limited capacity to help out workers in times of pandemics.
During the quarantine, most construction workers have to stay in their respective provinces and have to contend back to their rural way of life where farming is the main source of food. But as we may all know, the workers or rural folks generally really cannot totally rely on root crops and vegetation to support their family. Workers and ordinary folks will eventually have to look for rice or meat which they can only afford if they work in the city back to their construction work. Life for ordinary folks or construction workers also is not just about finding food to eat but they also have needs like clothing, need to educate their children, and electronic needs. If you see in the usual things that ordinary construction workers work for – the list start with cell phones, clothes, meat, and even the need to renovate their homes. So while most people can generally survive rural life by depending on what the earth gives like root crops or vegetation, the ordinary Filipino has other things that can only be addressed with money, thus they always will need to go back to their city work in the construction despite the fear of contracting the virus.
The construction industry need to find ways to be able to support their workers in times of pandemics. They can perhaps set up a kind of insurance fund for difficult times. No one is prepared for the pandemic, so in case of a second wave or other future pandemics, COVID 19 has given everyone a lesson – the need to be prepared. We especially need to take care of our workers, as after all, without them – nothing happens to the constructions industry.
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