Blacklist in the construction industry....

[butchersapron]

Not quite Orgeave, but part of the same rotten set up. Ricky Tomlinson is on North West Tonight talking about the Shrewsbury Three (24) and the recent home office decision to keep files relating to it secret.

 

[DaveCinzano]

FYI:

Did police spy Mark Jenner help prevent justice in the David Ewin murder case?

Mark Jenner, AKA ‘Mark Cassidy’, was an undercover police spy deployed in north London in the mid-1990s. He had a particular interest in construction workers (i.e. blacklist-related stuff), police accountability campaigns such as that run by Hackney Community Defence Association, Irish republicans and Anti-Fascist Action.

From Mark Metcalf's blog

Cross-posted because this cuts across various threads

 

[butchersapron]

High Court rules in favour of unions over blacklisting

Unions have welcomed yesterday’s High Court hearing into blacklisting as the first step on the path to justice for blacklisted workers.
The judge hearing the case agreed that the companies involved in blacklisting have a case to answer and that hundreds of separate cases made by victims of blacklisting will be heard together, under a Group Litigation Order (GLO). The next court date has been provisionally set for October and there will be a further hearing in December.

The cases will be managed by a Steering Committee, comprising of the solicitors acting for UCATT, Unite and the GMB and the Blacklist Support Group who have all brought forward cases.

UCATT general secretary Steve Murphy said: “Today was a green light in the battle for blacklisting justice. Over five years after the scandal was first revealed blacklisted victims are beginning to see justice in action. The companies involved in ruining workers lives are going to be forced to answer for their actions.”

In a further victory, it was agreed that the names and addresses of blacklisted workers will not be made publicly available and will be kept in a sealed enveloped which the judge has control over. Therefore the blacklisting companies will not have be given access to the names and addresses of their victims.

 

[ViolentPanda]

High Court rules in favour of unions over blacklisting

The final sentence put a big smile on my face.

 

[DaveCinzano]

The ‘bag of chips for your troubles, lads’ industry compensation scheme TCWCS is seemingly now on Twitter where it is busy, erm, saying nothing but following lots of construction trade press and - rather creepily - anti-blacklist activists.

Oh, and @BritBlackList, which is in fact “the UK's only database of British Black Talent and Entertainment”.

Oops!

 

[butchersapron]

Police ‘covered up’ links with union blacklisting: Leaked minutes show senior officer met group targeting union activists

The leaked document proves that as late as 2008 a detective chief inspector in the National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit (Netcu) briefed members of the Consulting Association, the secretive organisation that ran the blacklist keeping people out of work for decades. The association, which had a database of 3,213 names on which it held information, was raided and closed in 2009 by the Information Commissioner’s Office, but not before it destroyed the professional and personal lives of thousands of workers, according to those on the list.

A committee of MPs holding an inquiry into its activities heard evidence that at least two of those blacklisted committed suicide as a result. In 2012 the Information Commissioner’s Office told an employment tribunal that it believed information held in the files was from the police or security services.

The leak appears to offer compelling evidence of a flow of information between the police and the blacklisting operation. The two-page document contains minutes of a meeting between six representatives of construction companies, including Sir Robert McAlpine and Costain, with detective chief inspector Gordon Mills at the Bear Hotel, Woodstock, Oxfordshire.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Police ‘covered up’ links with union blacklisting: Leaked minutes show senior officer met group targeting union activists

Our old friend Dr Gordon Mills

 

[DaveCinzano]

Curious that Steve Craddock is described as a DI - only last year he was a Detective Superintendent, seemingly trying to get Peter Francis to shut up under pain of the Official Secrets Act.

 

[brogdale]

Guardian piece advertising the 'New Internationalist' book that they're selling, (Blacklisted: The Secret War between Big Business and Union Activists is published by New Internationalist.).
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...-building-firms-secret-information-on-workers
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...-building-firms-secret-information-on-workers
Concludes...

Five years after the ICO raid, nearly half the 3,213 people with Consulting Association files have still to be traced. While some aspects of the blacklisting have been investigated, there are many loose ends. What happened to all the minutes of Consulting Association meetings? Not one scrap of paper has so far been disclosed by any of the firms.

Group litigation is likely to go to full trial this year. Employment tribunals are ongoing and claims to the European Court of Human Rights are waiting to be heard. Balfour Beatty is the only firm to have defended its use of the Consulting Association. CEO Andrew McNaughton expressed regret but claimed it was the consequence of “an extremely difficult industrial-relations climate that had an adverse effect not only our company, but on our industry, our customers and the country as a whole”.

To this day, no blacklisting firm has made a public apology to the workers whose lives they ruined.

 

[campanula]

My dad was blacklisted throughout the entire 70s and early 80s (he died in 1985). Known as Eric the Red, he was a lifetime CP member and hugely skilled tradesman (painting and decorating, sign-writing etc. - 7 years apprentice served). By the end of his life, he counted himself fortunate to pick up short contracts such as painting the seafront railings in Blackpool (he used to fondly recall carefully painting dessicated dog turds in the silver railing paint). He served a time in prison for stealing coal (Strangeways) and was essentially an angry and embittered scgholarship lad who was hauled out of school at 14 and sent to work like his brothers, in one of the building trades. For my 13th birthday, despite my endless whining for Max Factor turquoise eyeshadow, I got a copy of the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. Just before he died, his final contract was a renovation in Blackpool Town Hall where he did marbling, stippling and woodgrain work.

It irks me that he died before his oft-repeated assertions of blacklisting (right across the north-west) was finally proven.

 

[butchersapron]

 

[cesare]

I'm in the middle of that book at the moment. Is that the first mention of it on this thread?

 

[Lo Siento.]

Just finished it, small bit I photoed for twitter -

Building employers are total scum.

 

[spitfire]

Just finished it, small bit I photoed for twitter -

Building employers are total scum.

That's nasty.

 

[Lo Siento.]

That's nasty.

The first chapter on how they ruined people's livelihoods is fucking heartbreaking. If there was any justice the McAlpines of this world would spend the rest of their lives in prison.

 

[spitfire]

I'll have to get a copy. One for my dad as well. He worked on site in the late 60s and all through the 70s so will be interested. He was always quite political so may have been subject to some of these shenanigans.

 

[Lo Siento.]

I'll have to get a copy. One for my dad as well. He worked on site in the late 60s and all through the 70s so will be interested. He was always quite political so may have been subject to some of these shenanigans.

From what the book says it's pretty likely. You didn't have to do much to get on the list, just go to the wrong meeting or (as the section above illustrates) speak up on conventional trade union grounds.

 

[brogdale]

Encouraging news from the courts...

MASSIVE BREAKING NEWS IN HIGH COURT – Blacklisting firms run up the white flag

During this morning’s hearing at the High Court for the blacklisting group litigation conspiracy trial, the majority of blacklisting firms in the trial represented by McFarlands solicitors submitted a revised set of legal pleadings. The document accepts virtually all of the facts about the workings of the Consulting Association blacklist argued by lawyers representing the 700 claimants. Hugh Tomlinson QC representing the blacklisted workers called the revised document a “radical transformation” and a move “on the path to righteousness”

David Kavender QC representing the major blacklisting firms told the court that his clients effectively accepted vicarious liability for the misuse of the blacklist. The admission and apology is the result of High Court legal action by the Blacklisting Support Group, Unite, GMB, UCATT and against 40 major construction firms involved in blacklisting through the secretive Consulting Association and Services Group of the Economic League. Those companies include Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd, Balfour Beatty, Carillion, Costain, Skanska, Kier, Vinci and Laing O’Rourke. It is estimated that compensation payouts could be around £100 million.

Full implications are still to be discussed and agreed as most lawyers have only seen the revised pleadings today. Other remaining blacklisting firms have not made any decisions whether they are to prepared to “hitch their wagons to the McFarlands caravan”. Lawyers for blacklisted workers will now be discussing their combined response.

Dave Smith, secretary Blacklist Support Group was in the court and commented:

“The blacklisting wretches have run up the white flag. They are guilty as sin and this is a desperate attempt to to try and avoid the spectacle of a High Court conspiracy trail. Personally, I want to see the directors of this national scandal given evidence under oath about their involvement in this systematic human rights abuse. Real justice would see those responsible for ruining so many lives sent to jail.

Unfortunately the British legal system is unlikely to provide real justice but we will continue to push for full disclosure of the evidence that has been deliberately concealed and a public inquiry to expose the full extent of this national scandal”.

Commenting Unite assistant general secretary Gail Cartmail said: “Blacklisting has ruined lives and led to hardship and misery for thousands of people. The admissions from the blacklisters and the damages for the blacklisted are an important step on the road to justice in righting that wrong.

“That road won’t be completed though, or the stain of blacklisting removed, until there is a full public inquiry and the livelihoods of the blacklisted restored by the firms involved giving them a permanent job.

“Those Tory ministers, who profess to be on the side of workers, while attacking trade unions should take note of these landmark admissions. They need to drop their draconian Trade Union bill which will make it easier for bad bosses to get away with injustices like blacklisting.”

 

[DaveCinzano]

Tide continues to turn...

High Court orders construction firms to release blacklisting information
Blacklisters pay for deleting evidence

Meanwhile, re this:

The ‘bag of chips for your troubles, lads’ industry compensation scheme TCWCS is seemingly now on Twitter where it is busy, erm, saying nothing but following lots of construction trade press and - rather creepily - anti-blacklist activists.

This Twitter account is now marked as ‘inactive’, though it's worth pointing out it still follows other accounts - with the single largest type of follow being for anti-blacklist activists/organisations (15/51). News sites and journalists comprise 10, construction industry 8, 3 which have the word ‘blacklist’ in their name but are otherwise unconnected, a single Tory, and 14 individuals of no discernible type.

 

[gawkrodger]

don't know to what extent people have been following the court cases but the screws are tightening

Blacklisted workers win compensation from big construction firms

 

[Dogsauce]

Hope some still go to trial, if all claims are settled out of court the truth (including police collusion) will remain buried. It needs daylight.

 

[yield]

More blacklisting

'Subversive' civil servants secretly blacklisted under Thatcher
Tue 24 Jul 2018

Whitehall and MI5 identified 1,420 individuals to be kept under observation and away from certain roles

Wilson government used secret unit to smear union leaders
Tue 24 Jul 2018

Secret Information Research Department targeted Hugh Scanlon and Jack Jones, newly released papers reveal

 

[pogofish]

Still alive and well up here I'm afraid - A Spanish construction company with a not too stellar history in the financial/H&S arena, with a major oil-related contract is apparently routinely threatening its (mostly agency/overseas) staff with the sack and blacklisting for any kind of reporting H&S concerns.

 

[GarveyLives]

Secret document reveals police 'blacklisting'

 

[treelover]

Revealed: Crossrail hired security firm to monitor trade unionists
Bosses of huge publicly funded project paid firm £59,000 over three years, documents show
Revealed: Crossrail hired security firm to monitor trade unionists

Revealed: Crossrail hired security firm to monitor trade unionists
See Mick is still fighting the good fight

 

[redsquirrel]

Spotted that earlier. Cunts.

 

[GarveyLives]

Revealed: Crossrail hired security firm to monitor trade unionists
See Mick is still fighting the good fight

"The documents show how the security company compiled weekly reports on the trade unionists who were seeking justice for blacklisted workers ...

The reports of the monitoring operation – codenamed Project Galahad – were sent to senior Crossrail executives. Control Risks was paid £47,857 in 2013 and £11,309 in 2010, according to TfL ..."

Someone was not telling the truth?:

"Crossrail Limited has rejected the unsubstantiated claims made by the Unite union that blacklisting has taken place on the Crossrail project ..."

23 January 2013: Crossrail rejects Unite’s claims about blacklisting

"The Scottish Affairs Committee says London's Crossrail project should be investigated after it heard "compelling evidence" of blacklisting of construction workers ..."

23 July 2013: Call for probe into Crossrail 'blacklisting' allegation

"Evidence of blacklisting on the Crossrail project has been put before the House of Commons by Streatham MP Chuka Umunna ..."

6 September 2017: Crossrail blacklisting aired in Parliament

Note: Crossrail's Chief Executive Officer at the time, Andrew Wolstenholme

 

[hitmouse]

New article on the blacklist and EEPTU collusion, specifically pointing out that Labour MP John Spellar was a senior EEPTU official during the period when the union leadership was actively passing information on its members on to employers and the state: When Unions Spy for the State

 

[hitmouse]

New article on union collusion with the blacklist:

Unfinished business over blacklisting

Far from being confined to corporations and the police, blacklisting of trade unionists in the construction industry was colluded in by the trade union movement itself. DAVE SMITH hopes that the full truth will finally come out

morningstaronline.co.uk

 

[hitmouse]

Blacklisting Investigation

…

www.unitetheunion.org

Unite the Union has commissioned an independent investigation into alleged involvement of any past of present union officers or officials in the operation of blacklists in the construction industry.

The independent investigation will be conducted by Jane McNeill QC in accordance with the attached Terms of Reference.

Evidence for the investigation is now being compiled by Thompsons Solicitors LLP. Any documentary evidence which any individual wishes to provide should be submitted to Thompsons either by email to BlacklistingInquiry@thompsons.law.co.uk or by post to Unite Blacklisting Inquiry, Thompsons Solicitors LLP, Congress House, 23-28 Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3LW, reference L213003/RH. All evidence to be considered for the purpose of the independent report must be received by Thompsons by 9 November 2021.