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2009 News ArchiveBlacklisting in the Construction Industry: Update(December 17, 2009)You may have read articles this year in The Socialist and in parts of the mainstream media about the legal action taken against The Consulting Association, a Droitwich-based company who were maintaining an illegal database of blacklisted workers.
To recap, an essentially chance encounter with a newspaper article about a worker who thought he might be blacklisted prompted staff at the Information Commissioner’s Office to investigate the activities of The Consulting Association and its sole employee, Ian Kerr. What they discovered was that TCA was basically continuing the work of the Economic League, which had monitored union activists with the help of Special Branch since the mid-1970s. The Economic League apparently folded after it was exposed in Parliament and the media in the early 1990s, but clearly it simply changed its name and carried on supplying major construction companies (Balfour Beatty, Costain, Laing O’Rourk, McAlpine etc) with details of workers considered too militant or even too health and safety conscious to be employed. One of the more disgraceful, though perhaps not surprising, aspects of this is that in some cases the blacklisting seems to have been instigated by trade union officials rather than managers. Exposure of illegal activity such as this must be part of the struggle to reclaim trade unions for ordinary working people.
 Construction workers protesting in 2009
Moreover, while undemocratic activities like this are clearly too embarrassing for the industry and the government when and if they are exposed, there is still no law against blacklisting. Mr Kerr was fined the derisory sum of £5,000 for breaking data protection laws (numerous companies paid annual fees of £3,000 for his services), and the IOC issued warnings to some of the companies named in his files, but one has to ask what is stopping him or someone else setting up exactly the same operation again. Various court cases are proceeding, but the IOC is still sitting on thousands of unclaimed files.
If you think you might be on a construction industry blacklist you can call them on 08456 306060 or 01625 545749 Monday-Friday 9am-5am (choose option 1).
(Credit for the information digested here goes to freelance journalist Phil Chamberlain – see his piece in the new on-line version of Lobster by clicking here |