29th July 2010, 04:49 PM
Uo1
I agree with you that there may well be more small start-ups and one man bands - but this will not affect how the medium and large contractors react to the market in general as they will not be particularly concerned about what happens with regard to 'small' projects where they are unlikely to be competitive anyway. Nor do I think that it has anything to do with projects that are outside local authority control.
The issue of merger vs JV is interesting but I think that you have got it wrong here. With a JV the bid is a combined one but the pay and conditions for employees of each organisation remain as per the contract of employment. In the past this has led to situations where two diggers working on the same site (or even the same feature) have different take-home pay, accommodation and subsistence allowances depending on which of the JV partners they are contracted to. With a merger this would not be the case - all employees would have to sign a new contract with the merged organisation (and in this way the pension situation would be resolved, as the merged organisation would have a new pension scheme and employees would have to decide if they want to opt out completely, join the new scheme, freeze their previous scheme, take the money out of the previous scheme, or any combination of these options).
Beamo
I agree with you that there may well be more small start-ups and one man bands - but this will not affect how the medium and large contractors react to the market in general as they will not be particularly concerned about what happens with regard to 'small' projects where they are unlikely to be competitive anyway. Nor do I think that it has anything to do with projects that are outside local authority control.
The issue of merger vs JV is interesting but I think that you have got it wrong here. With a JV the bid is a combined one but the pay and conditions for employees of each organisation remain as per the contract of employment. In the past this has led to situations where two diggers working on the same site (or even the same feature) have different take-home pay, accommodation and subsistence allowances depending on which of the JV partners they are contracted to. With a merger this would not be the case - all employees would have to sign a new contract with the merged organisation (and in this way the pension situation would be resolved, as the merged organisation would have a new pension scheme and employees would have to decide if they want to opt out completely, join the new scheme, freeze their previous scheme, take the money out of the previous scheme, or any combination of these options).
Beamo