Editorial: Act now or pay later - 19.01.06

contractjournal.com Newsletter - 19.1.06

Editorial: Act now or pay later

Threats of industrial action at both T5 and Wembley have once again harmed the reputation of the UK construction industry. With the Olympic Games coming to London in less than six years time, on-line news editor Tim Wood urges the industry to pull together to ensure that the 2012 infrastructure can be the best in the world.

The pages of this week's Contract Journal will make grim reading for the companies responsible for building two of the UK construction industry's most prestigious projects.

Page three features the threat of a walk out by electricians on the troubled £757m Wembley project and details of how workers at Heathrow's T5 are also due to strike later this month in a dispute over bonus pay.

Although the Wembley story on Wednesday claimed that strike action has been averted the unions have said today (Thursday) that that is no longer the case. Whatever the latest situation, the constant bickering between the unions and the contractors is not doing anyone any favours.

Pay disputes are part and parcel of big construction projects but the actions of the Wembley workers have gone so far as to even anger Amicus’ regional officer who has accused his own members of “spitting the dummy out” over the pay disputes.

“I have been advising members that it is not good going walkabout,” Westerman had told CJ.“I warned them that if they did there is a very real chance that we will be issued with either threats of instant dismissal, damages or even an injunction.

“They seem to think that because they are working on one of the biggest and most prestigious construction projects in the UK they can make all sorts of threats and demands. It’s the same on the T5 project, but this doesn’t happen on jobs in Manchester, Birmingham or in Scotland,” he said.

CJ agrees with Westerman that the actions are particularly damaging to the UK construction industry.

It comes at a time when it really needs to convince people that we have a workforce capable of building the infrastructure required for the Olympics in 2012.

But if these kind of disputes continue to rumble on, alternatives will have to be found.

There is a very real possibility that if UK workers fail to work under the conditions outlined in their contracts, that foreign labour will have to be employed because we are incapable of doing the work.

With the Olympic Games due to be held in London in 2012, that would be an absolute disaster... infrastructure for the biggest sporting event in the world being build by non-English workers.

Unless disputes such as those at Wembley and T5 are sorted and contracts altered to ensure such issues aren't repeated that is a very real possibility and would probe highly embarrassing for the country as a whole - not just construction.