CCF president seeks greater member involvement

If there is one thing new Civil Contractors Federation president and Sydney-based managing director of Mainland Civil Robert Dahan would like to achieve in his time in the top job, it would be to encourage more people involved in the industry to become members, and for members to become more involved in the facilities the organisation provides.

“The highest category membership levy in NSW is $4000 for companies turning over $20m or more a year. But a smaller member or associate could pay $1000 a year, and the level of service they can tap into at the CCF, is the same as the big boys.

“What that means is if you are a member you are not alone. If an issue arises with unfair dismissal for example, you can ring the NSW branch for assistance and John Higgins will likely come and see you. If employees need training, we can point you in the right direction,” he said.

But those who paid their levies and expected things just to happen, without their involvement in CCF activities like meetings, were kidding themselves, he said.

Contractor software

Dahan said the contractor management system, previously SCIMS and IMS, had not taken off in a big way in NSW. But in Victoria and South Australia, government departments had taken it on in a way NSW had not, and many contractors had bought it and used it. Also, most of them are audited regularly.

“In NSW, government departments are starting to embrace it as an automatic requirement. But at the moment you'll find there are probably 50 contracting organisations that have purchased the system and use it to supplement their management systems. And only a few in NSW are audited,” he said.

Dahan was elected national president for a year at the last annual general meeting in Sydney in November. But like his predecessor, and now national board member for Victoria Gary McLure, he hopes his term might extend for a further two years.

His involvement in the CCF started about 1992 when he was working as construction manager for Walker Civil. “The manager was a guy called Paul McKenna and he was involved in the CCF at a time when it was financially struggling. He and several others contributed $5000 apiece and the branch has blossomed since,” he said.

National treasurer

Then in 1996 Dahan was elected NSW branch president for five years. “By then I was getting more heavily involved on the national scene and I became national treasurer and stood down as state president. We needed to change branch support from $100,000 to $300,000 a year and that was difficult but everyone agreed to do it,” he said.

In taking on a senior role in the CCF, Dahan tends to look at it along the lines of a project manager looking after a job. “It's really another project on the side. It has all the same issues of budget, clients to keep happy and getting things done.”

However a big CCF “project” has been changing the constitution, and Dahan spent a considerable time over the last three years on the rules sub committee, going through necessary changes.

“I look at that as the one thing that drained most of my time. You'd think it would be a fairly simple task. But in reality it consumed an enormous amount of time.”

The crux of the constitutional changes has been administrative. For example at national level, instead of two councillors from each state, now there is one board member. Another driver was to bring the CCF more into line with what is happening in the corporate world. Then there were broader changes, for example to membership categories, to bring as many people involved in the industry as possible, in as CCF members.

Affiliate category

One result was that a category for affiliates was added. Essentially that brings in local councils and state government departments who previously were not eligible. Dahan said that while they might be contractors, they would not have qualified as associates.

He said some members at branch level, are not overly enthused about having the big construction companies as members. “They say that those companies take every opportunity to nail us to the wall, so why should we let them in? On the other hand I think it is better to have them in and educate them to our way of thinking.”

Ultimately at the federal level of the CCF, he said the board would like to employ a national industrial relations expert. “That would probably only mean a $100,000 addition to the national office budget, which currently only costs 4c of every dollar collected by the states to run,” he said.

Mainland specialises in city excavation, paving

Dahan has spent 22 years in civil construction, with 15 years of that working for Walker Civil, a company with a turnover of $50 to $60m a year mainly in city excavation and metropolitan area paving.

Seven and a half years ago he helped establish Mainland Civil, based just south of the city at Kogarah, of which he is managing director and one of four shareholders.

“Our philosophy is to not push the envelope. We would prefer to turn over a fairly consistent level and keep our crew of about 60 people at the same level. Our key focus is city excavations and paving within the Sydney metropolitan area too although we also work in development. We work for a select group of no more than 10 clients. But the group does not include government departments among its clients because of the mass of paperwork that must be completed.

A recent paving job, worth $20m, has involved building 1m thick flexible pavements for Patrick Corporation at Port Botany.

The pavement comprised four layers of recycled, crushed concrete with cement added to stabilise it.

Road base

The lowest level was a lower grade road base product. Next up was a higher quality road base with more cement followed by a ?? 20 layer. On top was a 150 to 350mm thick asphalt layer.

He said there were about 15 pavement options in the tender document and undoubtedly the final selection was dictated by things like wear and tear on machinery, ride comfort for equipment operators and surface cracking potential.

Dahan said the intention of the pavements was to allow cracking of the bottom layers to create flexibility. “With the pavement loading they had, a rigid pavement would have been thicker.”

Dahan said a basic company philosophy was to move with the markets because the margins tend to move too. When city excavations are top of the pops the company tends to focus on that and when paving is hot, it moves more in that direction.

Earthmover asked Dahan what he thought about the so called skill shortage.

He said there was no shortage of excavator operators. “You can go down the road and get a ticket easily enough. Then with a bit of practice so that you can dig a tench and load a truck reasonably well, probably a couple of weeks work, you are employable.

Final trim operators

“But to be a final trim grader operator, it's not a two week exercise; it's a six month exercise,” he said.

At the engineer level sees a similar opportunities for people to come through the ranks and essentially have the skills of engineers.

“At Walker Civil, I worked on $25m to $30m of projects a year as a qualified engineer. But the other guy, responsible for a similar value of projects, didn't have a qualification because he started with the company as a labourer. So you don't need a civil engineering degree to operate effectively in a construction company unless you are providing a design and construct service and certification,” he said.

If I'm short of a final trim grader operator I could get one. I just need to pay what it takes. Then I'll charge the client whatever extra it costs.

Dahan sees the industry as a great place for school leavers to start.

“If they have a good work ethic, they can make $1000 a week in their hand and work hard for five years then kick off a small business for themselves. But that's one of the problems we have because the industry is too easy to come into and get out of,” he said.