ON TIME, ON BUDGET - UNION BUILT! WORKERS OPENING CELEBRATES AIRPORT
ACHIEVEMENT
7 October 2005
Forget the Prime Minister, the REAL
opening of the new Adelaide airport will be celebrated by the union
members who built it at 10.30 am.
The workers weren't invited to the Prime Minister's
event, so they have decided to have an opening of their own, complete
with the cutting of a red ribbon on the terminal bridge!
Today's grand opening is testament to our highly
skilled and professional union members who got the project in on time
and on budget, SA Unions says.
SA Unions Secretary, Janet Giles congratulated all
the union workers who did such a magnificent job on this state-building
project.
"This is a landmark project that will stand as a
monument to the excellence of our workers and the capacity of our
existing industrial relations system", Ms Giles says.
"The airport was delivered on time, on budget and
was union built."
"It was a great outcome for workers too - all those
involved were either covered by Awards or Enterprise Agreements and so
received fair wages and working conditions."
"It goes to show that when workers are treated well,
they perform at their best", Ms Giles says.
"We doubt that the project would have proceeded
anywhere near as smoothly if the federal government's industrial
rollback had begun to strip workers of their entitlements."
"We hope that when the Prime Minister performs his
opening this morning, he understands that the airport is a product of a
system that he's about to undermine. We again urge the Prime
Minister to put aside ideology and look at the reality. Under the
current system, this project was delivered with excellent productivity,
minimal disruption, great flexibility, and fair entitlements and
conditions for workers. Why destroy something that works?" Ms
Giles says.