For the past couple of years the water industry is enjoying a rare glimpse in the limelight. Although clearly it’s for all the wrong reasons. This behemoth of an industry has been quietly working away in the background, in the shadows, seamlessly delivering potable water and taking away the sewage. It’s not a sexy industry, and many would say it’s taken for granted. But this laissez faire attitude is a key component in the mess that we’re currently in. The industry has for too long been forgotten and been left to its own devices, with the consequences which are finally comping into light tofor the general public.

The financial shenanigans have been extensively documented in the mainstream press, with the byzantine financial corporate structures, siphoning of profits and bumper executive bonuses. But what do you know about the workers – the ones who actually toil day in day out and live with the consequences of a mismanaged industry that everyone has forgotten about? Fergal Sharkey likes to make the distinction between the Environment Agency bosses – who are in it for their bonus or political gain – and the workers, dedicated environmentalists who strive to improve the environment. The same analogy applies to the water industry. People don’t come into this sector looking for bags of money or a high octane life. People are drawn to it from the sense of purpose they get forin delivering a basic human right – the access to safe water and sanitation. 35 years of privatisation has hardly eroded the sense of satisfaction of delivering a public good to your local community, although this has long been forgotten amongst the water sector boards and higher echelons. Like so many public sector jobs, the water industry tends to be a vocational sector where people find jobs for life, often having entire families and multiple generations working in the same company.

The water industry as a whole is faced with two key challenges: finances and sewage spills. Although these are inextricably related, they affect workers in different ways. The speculation around the future of Thames Water, and by extension the other large water firms, has resulted in a panicked tightening of the belt across the industry. With the main costs of these companies being energy, chemicals and payroll, capitalism obliges the first two to get paid unquestioned. As ever the pinch is felt by the little people who actually keep these places running. Terms and conditions across the sector have progressively worsened. You name it, the industry has done it: outsourcing, offshoring, lower than inflation pay rises, worsening pension provisions, changes to working patterns to include weekend work at no extra cost, reducing staff numbers with no reduction in workloads. It truly reads like a Dummy’s Guide to Bad Practices. And yet these squeezed workers remain loyal to their duty to their communities, running on goodwill and essentially keeping the industry from completely collapsing.

Which brings us to the second point – sewage spills. And although sewage is in the media, the same issues apply to the treatment of potable water, with potentially even more serious implications. The asset stripping and siphoning of profits for shareholder dividends which has gone on for decades, when nobody was looking in the direction of the water companies, has left the entire asset base on its knees. Like all large infrastructure sectors the industry has large, costly assets that require constant maintenance and periodic renewal – all on a herculean scale. So clearly wWith no strong regulatory drive, the owners have preferred a light touch approach, spending little and pocketing big. But clearly this is completely unsustainable. And so we get to the present day – a skeleton crew of workers desperately trying to keep ageing assets working, sites that can only deliver a fraction of their design capacity, and bosses in denial about how we’ve ended up here.

Every worker that I have ever met in this industry comes to work every day looking to do a good job – the best they can even. The pride of working in this industry – until a couple of years ago at least – was a huge part of keeping things running smoothly. It’s their passion, effort and willingness to go above and beyond that has saved the bacon of the company bosses. Operatives work extremely hard in difficult conditions because they care about their work and they care about the environment. The news reports around sewage spills can really feel like a punch in the gut for the workers who put so much into what they do. They would go into great details to outline the differences between raw sewage spills, consent breaches, storm discharges. Each is different and has a different impact on the receiving watercourse. They would also point out to the thriving biology in certain rivers, which can often improve after discharge points. They would reel off the numerous rivers where salmon and other fragile species have returned after decades of absence. And they would say all of this from sheer passion and devotion to the good work they do and their passion for the environment.

Which is absolutely not to say that companies should be let off the hook for the crisis we are seeing in our waterways. As often happens the lines are blurred – the industry as a whole is tarred but the real problem is the systemic mis management, not the devotion of the workers. The under investment in assets is real – and was a deliberate choice of company owners, present and past. The fact that companies take their operating licences for granted and believe they are untouchable is a genuine issue. The press are absolutely right to print story after story on the matter. But employee goodwill has been abused to the extent that the workers are doing the companies lobbying for them.

Some of the biggest opponents of renationalisation – or any version of a change in industry ownership model – is most vehemently opposed by the industry workers themselves, seemingly affected by some weird Stockholm Syndrome. It’s true that renationalisation will not solve all of the problems – the nationalised model of Scotland and the not for profit model of Wales shows us that the industry issues affect those areas just as much as they do English water companies. But it must be better to allow profits to get reinvested rather than diverted to further bolster already deep capitalist pockets. The recent bailout package that is about to be handed to Thames Water to save them from complete collapse feels like a missed opportunity to discuss the bigger issues around alternative ownership models. Pumping further cash into the industry without seizing the opportunity for a systemic review of the way it is funded surely equates to kicking the can down the road.