14.11.18
Crossrail contractors in row over overtime pay
A pay row has broken out over overtime payments for contractors working on the Elizabeth Line as it raced to get the project finished on time.
TfL and Crossrail are said to be questioning bills from contracts after workers undertook overnight and weekend overtime over worries about delays to the £15.4bn project, which has since been delayed by nine months untill at least autumn 2019.
As reported by the Construction Enquirer, one site source said: “Contractors are being told that they won’t get paid bills for overtime on some weekends and overnight work.
“They basically flooded the job with workers getting paid top dollar doing all hours when worries about the deadline started.
“Now those bills are being questioned on the client side over who authorised them which is causing all sorts of problems.
“The site workers have already been paid so they don’t care.
“This is a problem for the main contractors but no doubt it will get moved down the supply chain as usual.”
As well as the nine month delay, the Crossrail project has been plagued by major engineering, technical and cost challenges as its costs have reportedly soared £600m over budget.
Last month Crossrail received a £350m short-term loan in order to prevent it from falling further behind schedule, announced by Jo Johnson, who has since resigned from his role.
Crossrail’s chief executive Simon Wright also stood down “as planned” and on 19 November and will be replaced by Mark Wild, the current managing director of London Underground.
The London Assembly also claimed that Sadiq Khan and other London transport bosses “misled” the assembly over the delays, and said it “identified grave discrepancies” in evidence given to its investigation.
Speaking to RTM last month, Pidgeon said that if the claims of Khan misleading Londoners were true, then he should “absolutely” face a Financial Conduct Authority investigation.
Image credit - Andrew Matthews/PA Archive/PA Images
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