West Gate Tunnel lay-offs begin as builders blame financial strain
Up to 65 workers on the $6.7 billion West Gate Tunnel have been laid off, with staff fearing more cuts are on the horizon as project builders battle budget woes.
VIC News
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Builders on the $6.7 billion West Gate Tunnel have started laying off staff, with 65 workers told on Tuesday they were sacked from the project.
Sources inside the project told the Herald Sun that CPB and John Holland blamed significant financial constraints when delivering the news.
Its understood the companies have told staff that delays created by issues removing soil contaminated by PFAS have put the project over budget.
The lay-offs are believed to include white-collar and labour hire workers and have sparked fears among other staff that further cuts are coming.
Earlier this month, the consortium said that hundreds of workers could be stood down in an escalation of its dispute with Transurban over the contract to build the project.
At the time, the Transport Infrastructure Minister Jacinta Allan hit out at the builders’ tactics and said the decision to cut jobs was “disgraceful”.
The decision to lay off the 65 workers has come on the same day that Ms Allan fronted a parliamentary inquiry into the government’s COVID-19 response and announced a winter construction blitz.
“There is no reason whatsoever for Transurban’s builders CPB and John Holland to sack these workers,” a government spokeswoman said.
“While businesses across Australia are going to extraordinary lengths to keep staff on – Transurban’s builders sacking more people because they can’t resolve a petty dispute – is disgraceful.”
More than 100 tunnelling workers were stood down earlier this year and Transurban pushed back the project’s completion date back to 2023 as the dispute with its builders has escalated.
There are currently three sites bidding to handle the toxic soil that will be dug up by the project, with submissions by Maddingley Brown Coal and High Quality Group in Bulla well advanced.
Two massive tunnel boring machines are yet to start digging and cannot be switched on until a location is found to hold the soil.
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