Site accidents and fatalities. A mental health crisis in which the industry has a suicide rate almost four times the national average. A gender and racial imbalance that persists despite years of “awareness campaigns” and hollow promises. Cut-throat competition that forces contractors to underbid, underdeliver, and undervalue the very workers who make their businesses possible. Unreasonable contract and employment terms that shift all the risk downward onto the shoulders of those least able to carry it. Equipment and fuel theft that adds insult to injury on already strained margins. An employee churn rate that has workers queuing at the industry exit while the industry entrance is almost eerily quiet.
We like to treat these as isolated problems. We spend millions on new PPE initiatives, mental health posters, diversity programs, contract reforms, and security upgrades. Each issue is treated as a separate fire to be extinguished, a leak to be plugged, a nuisance to be managed.
But what if I told you that all of these issues — all of them — stem from the same poisoned well? That there is a single remedy. A cure. A panacea to almost all the industry’s ills. And that panacea comes in a single word:
Respect.
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