Not just about bricks: The invisible building worker

The solution to the construction industry's 'image problem' is sometimes said to lie in explaining that building is 'not just about bricks'. This paper reflects upon the seeming 'invisibility', both in the industry and in academic work, of those who do the physical work of construction. Contractors increasingly delegate responsibilities for employment down multi-layered supply chains; training and development are largely confined to core professional/managerial staff. Building workers are increasingly marginalised in discourses which seek to constitute the construction industry as 'modern and high-tech', and the work as part of the 'knowledge economy'. With some notable exceptions, academic research tends to focus on professional and managerial staff rather than manual workers. Thus, arguably, research may fail to question fundamental assumptions, and to investigate the full range of people's experience in the construction industry. The embodied skills of craft workers are devalued by comparison with the more cerebral knowledge of professionals. Thus, firms cut themselves off from their knowledge base, workers have less opportunity to advance, and the industry continues to have an image problem . Construction management (CM) is founded on appropriating the knowledge of the craft worker, as what was previously craft knowledge becomes management knowledge. Professional institutions seek to dissociate CM from mere building. Institutions of higher education play a large part in this, controlling access by exams and tests. Academic work on CM also tends to legitimise the view of professional construction managers as experts with authority based on scientific knowledge.