Construction industry tackles HIV pandemic

Allied Trade Workers’ Union to combat the HIV and Aids pandemic which is wreaking havoc in the industry.
The pension fund and union are tackling the spread of HIV/Aids at the workplace by partnering with stakeholders in the construction sector such as employers and members of the communities in which they operate.
The primary goal of the pension fund and union initiative is to inform and educate workers in the sector about the HIV/Aids pandemic through awareness campaigns that seek to highlight the impact of the disease in the industry.
The rampant practice of unsafe sex is attributed as one of the major causes of the increase in percentage of the HIV/Aids infections in the construction industry.
The fund’s pensions manager, Mr Elisha Ngunga, said the awareness campaigns were the brainchild of the union, which introduced them in 2009 to combat the spread of the pandemic in the industry where there is high incidence of deaths due to the pandemic.
Mr Ngunga said as a pension fund they saw it fit to join hands with the union in this noble cause after realising that the number of deaths of employees in the sector had shot up significantly over the last decade.
“In 2001, 24 percent of the notified deaths within our membership were HIV/Aids related and by 2008 that rate had soared to 42 percent and this is a cause for concern.
“It is estimated that with this trend, if no action is taken, the rate will be 75 percent by 2025.
“As a pension fund we joined the Zimbabwe Construction Allied Trade Workers’ Union this year and together we have already covered three out of the industry’s designated five regions.
“The campaign was effective as it not only educated employees, but members of the communities as well with participants given educational materials such as flyers while they were shown visuals and images that help influence behaviour change,” he said. The programme has already covered areas including Harare, Manicaland and Midlands and construction sites in Masvingo and Bulawayo are set to be visited before the end of the year.
Meanwhile, the pension fund will also be dedicating an article in its half-year newsletter to HIV/Aids issues, so as to ensure maximum coverage on the matter.
Pension funds make long-term investments with the realisation that the productive ages would work longer and reap the returns of these investments at their retirement. Pre-retirement death results in those investments being redeemed prematurely thereby realising small returns.
The collaboration between union and pension fund is being spearheaded by an HIV/Aids resource specialist, Ms Vimbai Masawi, who travels to various construction sites throughout the country giving in- depth information about the disease.
The Aids resource specialist touches on areas such as how HIV/Aids is contracted, spread, avoided as well as kept under check once one has the disease.
Ms Masawi said lack of education and entertainment were among major contributing factors to the spread of HIV/Aids, and that poverty was forcing young women to engage into prostitution with construction workers who typically live away from their families.
The union’s deputy general secretary, Mrs Fozert Mugabe, said the HIV/Aids programme was initiated in 2008 after the realisation that the working patterns of workers in the sector made them vulnerable to HIV/Aids.
“We commissioned a research study which highlighted that HIV/Aids had a negative impact on the construction sector surpassing even the transport industry because of the nomadic nature of the work, which forces workers to leave their families at home,” she said.
The union is an affiliate of Building Workers’ International and this relationship was key to the commissioning of the research that led to the formulation of an HIV/Aids policy in 2008 whose primary aim was to educate the workers about the pandemic.
Mrs Mugabe added that the construction industry has been faced with a challenge of migrant workers who have to leave their homes to take up work in the mines, roads and dam construction projects.
As such, there was an urgent need to address on the pandemic, which the workers may be exposed due to their mobility status.
“We are targeting road, dam and mining construction workers and the HIV and Aids policy so as to address behaviour change through general education and basic facts about the pandemic.
“We decided to rope in stakeholders in the industry such as the National Employment Council and Construction Industry Pension Fund to help us reach out directly to the workers hence this programme,” said Mrs Mugabe.
The programme targets areas where massive development projects would be undertaken such as Ngezi and Chiadzwa in Mhondoro and Mutare respectively.
Mrs Mugabe said the biggest challenge they face is the issue of disclosure as this makes the statistics inaccurate although it is accurate to say that HIV/Aids is causing havoc in the construction sector.
United Nations statistics show that 60 million people were affected by the disease over the past 20 years in which 20 million died while over 68 million are expected to die over the next 20 years.
The UN estimates that employers can invest U$5 per employee annually to prevent the pandemic whereas the cost of Aids can be close to US$1 000 per employee annually.