FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 03, 2006

Vancouver … The Building and Construction Trades Council have responded to today’s announced Olympic construction cost overruns with doubts about the shuffling and estimates of future expenditures.

The Building Trades have been in talks with VANOC administrators for over two years and have yet to conclude an agreement on labour supply, training, safety and compensation. An agreement would have brought stability to the current chaotic marketplace where labour costs are spiralling upward. “We can’t control the international marketplace and the cost of building materials but we could have provided a stable supply of workers, training, safety protocols and compensation packages that would have limited the extent of these overruns,” said Wayne Peppard, Executive Director of the BCYT-BCTC.

“Our discussions with VANOC have been stalled by political resistance to collaborating with trade unions,” Peppard added. “Now VANOC is paying the price for its commitment to the free market” Peppard said.

The Building and Construction Trades have repeatedly pointed to the Sydney Summer Olympics as the model for labour collaboration on venue construction. “The Sydney Games were built on-time, on-budget, took full advantage of training opportunities and had a stellar safety record,” Peppard said.

“We couldn’t have controlled the greed of contractors but could have brought stability to labour costs.

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For further information contact Wayne Peppard at 778-388-0014

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For further information contact 

the BCYT-BCTC office:  604-291-9020

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