Streets must be done as much as possible with machines if it is up to the labor inspection. Street makers are often unnecessarily heavily loaded physically, but still too little work is done with machines. The street makers of the future are not immediately keen on it. They prefer to see their future profession as a craft. “The best thing is that you make something beautiful with your hands. You can see that immediately.”
Stijn Verstegen from Heesch has been fascinated by the profession from an early age. Now he is a student at the King Willem I College in Den Bosch. “I used to come along. I always wanted to become a street worker. But you can do less and less,” Stijn also knows. “I think that’s a shame, because that’s the best thing. You can’t really continue with the machine. That is not going fast enough.”
His classmate Milan van der Lee from Veghel is following the Craftsman GWW (Ground, Water and Road Construction). “I mainly do sewerage and work outside a lot. That is nice, although it is less in winter.” He also sees manual work as the core of the profession. “Working by hand is much more craftsmanship. It is mainly to make meters with the machine. I understand why it is necessary, but for me it’s all about pleasure in my work. What happens later with my body, I don’t think about that yet.”
According to teacher Jurgen Hoeve, it makes sense that students are still sticking to the craft. “They are proud of the original profession and find machine laying often difficult. It feels like it is not yet a fixed part of the craft. Yet it is inevitable. Everywhere it is, we have to mechanically paved. That must be the rule.”
The training in Den Bosch consciously responds to this. Students not only learn to work with machines, but also why that is important. “We explain the risks and teach them to take that to work,” explains Hoeve. “If a student comes to a company where the old habits are still deep, he must be able to say:” This can be done differently and we train them on that. “
The reality in the workplace remains double, the students notice. “In practice you often pick it up by hand,” says Milan. “Being just as fast, or just a bit stubborn. If you have to wait for a machine, that’s not the best.” Stijn also sees it this way: “With the machine it saves you, I understand that. But the best thing remains to do it yourself.”
According to teacher Jurgen Hoeve, the cover is already going on. “Now we may work 80 to 90 percent machine, but there is always a piece where it is not possible. Nowadays there is also a component of machine -making at the Dutch championships. That shows that we are in the middle of a cultural change. It takes time, but it is desperately needed.”