All involved must address striking workers woes

 A stop-work protest by workers at two Pacific Games venues this week may have only lasted a day or two at the most, but a precedent may have been set.

With a tight deadline and very little elbow room to work in, Pacific Games organisers cannot afford any unnecessary delays to the projects.

A day or two missed means work has to be done quicker to make up for lost time.

Rushed work, especially of this scale is fraught with danger, not just for the workers but for the integrity of the structure itself.

Are the workers of this particular company holding the project to ransom? Of course they are. But is it their fault or doing? No. This situation has come about because the project was already at least a year behind schedule to begin with. 

Can we blame the workers for exploiting that? No, not if their concerns are legitmate. 

They now have a powerful bargaining chip and are using it to leverage better pay and working conditions for themselves. Kudos to them. 

The construction firm could easily sack its entire staff and bring in a new set of workers but what is to say the same situation will not arise again. 

Unfortunately, the company is between a rock and a hard place, and the only way out is to acquiesce to the workers.

Hopefully, whatever negotiations conducted, they are done so efficiently and with the fairest possible outcome for both parties.

After that, everyone needs to put their heads down and get the job done as quickly as possible.

In hindsight, this could all have been avoided if work had started earlier. With a wider window of time to work in, the workers may not have felt as confident in forcing the their employer’s hand.

There are other projects in the city that are running behind schedule and the true state of the facilities will ultimately be known when the games are arrive.