Formwork Carpenter

You set panel formwork for slabs, walls and columns from the shuttering plan, level the props to the given height, and check the diagonal before the pour. Timber work is the rest of it: beams, edge boards, stair boxes and the cut outs the drawing marks. During the pour you watch the panels for movement and tighten what starts to open. Striking begins when the concrete has its days, and you clean, oil and stack the panels so the next floor can use them. Ten hour days from Monday to Friday, Saturday to noon when a pour is due.

Trade school as a carpenter or four years of formwork on site

Panel systems and traditional timber shuttering, both

Reads a shuttering plan and works to the given levels

Handles a circular saw, a nail gun and a spirit level daily

Head for heights and a harness discipline above two metres

Basic English is enough, the crew speaks Serbian

Net salary from 723 up to 795 EUR per month

Eighteen month contract with a written option for the next site

Bonus for every pour delivered on the planned day

Warm meal on site and drinking water on every level

Travel from Novi Sad and from Backa Palanka paid

Accommodation for the crew from outside the region

Helmet, harness, gloves, knee pads and boots provided

The contractor keeps its carpenters between sites and moves the steady ones to gang leader, where the pay grade and the responsibility for the shuttering plan both go up.

An open site with a tower crane, panels stacked on the deck and a container for the break and for tools. Helmet, harness, gloves and boots with a steel sole are worn everywhere past the gate.