Taking Out The Trash

Blacklisting round-up

It's a legal matter baby

In what some described as chaotic scenes, today saw the latest stage in the employment tribunal process for those bringing unfair dismissal claims because of blacklisting.

There are about 80 separate actions and so the tribunal service has lumped them all together. It held a case management discussion in Manchester. The aim was to work out what information was still needed by all parties and agree the next step.

To be fair to the service, it is an unusual situation and it appears that the claimants are being every opportunity to put their cases.

A few cases will be held early next year around the country but it's going to be well into 2010 before we see the bulk of these dealt with and these will all be heard in Manchester. If you run a hotel in the city I'd start putting together a special blacklisting rate.

The meeting was so packed with barristers and solicitors it could have been the Law Society's AGM. Today must have cost the various construction companies tens of thousands in legal fees, and the meter is still running. This is likely to prove a strong incentive for companies not to go the distance. (Indeed one case has, apparently, already been settled out of court). Claimants want to air their greivances but some cases will be ruled out of time. So there is a big question mark over how many will finally see the inside of a court room.

The waiting game

Tribune has a comment piece from Labour MP Dave Anderson on the blacklisting issue which says (among other things):

Any party that has aspires to be progressive should not need to argue about outlawing this type of discrimination and using tough new laws to do so. Ministers should work with the unions and Keith Ewing, author of the UCATT report, to put in place the real protection that many workers desperately need.

I've been checking Hansard daily and pestering Matt at the BIS press office weekly to see when the new regulations outlawing blacklisting are going to get published. Still nothing. I can't imagine they'd be sneaked out, could they?

Pointing the finger

Over at Northern Voices they've picked up on a particular aspect of the blacklisting story which I included in my Saturday piece for the Guardian. Interesting to see how this is taken up.

Blacklisting - it was for health and safety reasons

Update: Saturday November 21

The Guardian runs my feature today updating the various aspects of the blacklisting story; from the court cases to the pending legislation and the continued drip of information that the files are releasing.

Seventeen months after Guardian Work exposed blacklisting in the construction industry, new laws outlawing the practice are set to come into force, and next week 23 of its alleged victims will start their court cases.

But for electricians such as Colin Trousdale it doesn't mean the scandal is over....

Read on

Northern Voices follows-up today's story and Panopticon has a considered take on the latest developments. I'm also intrigued by its suggestion here of a particular project in this area.

****

Yesterday building firm Skanska, one of those which subscribed to a secret intelligence-gathering company, today revealed the results of its internal investigation into the matter.

People Management Magazine Online reports that:

Building firm Skanska used an illegal blacklist of construction workers to vet employees for a history of violence and drug or alcohol abuse, an internal investigation has revealed.

Harvey Francis, executive vice-president for HR, told PM that it had subscribed to the list, which contained confidential details of 3,213 construction workers, “to ensure the safety of people working on our sites” – not to blacklist people on the grounds of trade union membership as reported in the press.

One person a week dies on a construction site in the UK so it is a laudable aim to put health and safety front and centre. However, many of the blacklisted construction workers I have spoken to (and whose files I have seen) have ended up on the system because they raised health and safety issues. A campaign group representing families bereaved because of deaths in the construction industry has spoken out specifically about this.

The report says that the Skanska investigation has led to:

"all white-collar staff were given training sessions on a new company code of conduct, which included guidance on employee referencing. A new position of data protection officer was created, and all of the 80-strong HR team were retrained on a new data protection policy – with yearly refresher courses planned."

It's pretty clear from what Francis says that there was a system-wide failure in the HR department but, the report says, no-one has been sacked. So in one case we have mistakes that have been proved and no-one gets the chop. On the other hand, false or irrelevant allegations are made and construction workers industry-wide are sacked. Somehow it does not seem that people are being treated equally.

The human relations departments in construction firms have been pretty succesful in avoiding the spotlight in this scandal. It is to Francis's and Skanksa's credit that they have been upfront about their investigation.

Concerns about how the HR industry has acted have been raised - it would be useful to know what steps other companies have taken to overhaul their HR departments in the manner Skanska has.

Now RMT members found on blacklist files

Tribune magazine has posted up a news story from me about how RMT members have found they have blacklisting files. So far it was thought just construction workers in Ucatt and Unite were affected.

Members of a third trade union have been revealed as being victims of the infamous construction industry blacklist.

In February, officials of the Information Commissioner’s Office raided the Consulting Association in Droitwich. They discovered secret files on some 3,200 workers in the construction industry which had been maintained on behalf of building firms for vetting purposes.

Of the 238 files released so far, most have been on members of the UCATT and Unite unions – but now it turns out that some RMT members were blacklisted as well.

You can read the rest here.

Update

• The application by Scottish and Southern Electric for an injunction to stop picketing outside the Fiddlers Ferry power plant on Merseyside was thrown out of the High Court yesterday (wed). See the BBC and Building magazine (and a clip from BBC North West below).
• Out of 1,872 people who have rung the Information Commissioner's Office to see if a blacklisting file is held on them; 238 have had copies of their files sent to them. There were more than 3,200 names on the blacklist database in total.
• My review of Newspeak In The 21st Century is drawing some comment from Medialens: have a look for yourself.

Call for scrutiny of blacklisting legislation

A couple of weeks back I covered a meeting of the Blacklist Support Group where John McDonnell MP said that there would  only be a limited opportunity to inspect proposed legislation aimed at making blacklisting illegal.

Below is a release from Ucatt which explains why it is necessary for there to be scrutiny and why Lord Mandelson should not simply sign the rules into law.

I've filed a longer piece on this (and on many other aspects of the story) for The Guardian. We now await publication of the new rules.

In other news: one of the blacklisted electricians is due before the High Court tomorrow (Wednesday) having been served with an injunction to stop him picketing the Fiddlers Ferry power station on Merseyside. Scottish and South Electric claim he is a threat to the National Grid. Which seems a tad excessive.

A group of Labour MPs have agreed to work with construction union UCATT to pressurise the Government to strengthen the draft regulations designed to outlaw blacklisting.

 

The MPs agreed to take this action at the parliamentary launch today (October 20) of Ruined Lives, an academic report which reveals that the Government’s proposed anti-blacklisting regulations are inadequate. Ruined Lives was commissioned by UCATT and produced by the Institute of Employment Rights.

 

Professor Keith Ewing the author of Ruined Lives said the Government’s draft regulations were “hopeless and inadequate”. He described how the regulations do not provide a right not to be blacklisted, if a worker is blacklisted there is no automatic right to compensation and that it would not be illegal to supply information to a blacklist. The Government does not propose to make blacklisting a criminal offence so the burden of proof remains on the affected worker.

 

Mr Ewing also described how the draft regulations were too narrowly defined as they only referred to trade union activity, which could mean that the blacklisting of political activists would remain legal. The draft regulations also do not cover industrial action.

 

Alan Ritchie, General Secretary of UCATT, described how union health and safety reps were especially targeted by companies, as they were often swiftly laid off after assuming their duties and then were unable to find work with other companies.

 

Speaking about the need for the draft regulations to be strengthened Mr Ritchie, said: “The regulations don’t just have to be watertight they have to be airtight so the employers can’t wriggle out of them.”

 

John Winstanley a UCATT activist who was blacklisted throughout his working life told the meeting how between 1964-1987 he had 54 different employers, due to being blacklisted. Resulting in often having to claim benefits a situation which placed a huge “strain on his relationship”.

 

Despite having been in the construction industry for 50 years Mr Winstanley said that he felt he could not provide a reference for any of his family because of the, “fear that as I was blacklisted it would affect the work of my relations.”

 

The Government is due to publish the anti-blacklisting regulations before Christmas, following a consultation exercise that ended in August. The MPs have agreed to ask parliamentary questions, lobby the Department of Business and use parliamentary scrutiny methods in order to ensure that the regulations are strengthened.

Thursday round-up

Ferociously busy with work so lax with the posting but here are a few items:

I'm looking at putting together an online resource which will collate all the information published regarding the blacklisting scandal. This is in conjunction with Spinwatch. If you've got info/ideas which you think should be on such a site let me know. Meanwhile a Blacklisting Support Group has been set up. See my article in tomorrow's Tribune or a piece on Labournet.

Since January 26 2006: Two new children for me, a new president for America, a new Prime Minister for Great Britain, Spurs still providing comedy light relief for football fans. It's also the day I put in an FOI request to the National Offender Management Service (NOMS). Yesterday I got a letter from the ICO saying they upheld my appeal that NOMS should release me the info I asked for.
Three-and-a-half years. Including 250 days for them to carry out an internal review when the ICO says it should take 40 at most. Shouldn't be surprised as the BBC's Martin Rosenbaum made  clear a year ago.
Hopefully the results are going to end up in a newspaper article so that will be some satisfaction.

Finaly: via a tweet from Tom Watson MP this story about state-sponsored spyware in Blackberrys. Why would you call your surveillance app Interceptor though? Doesn't that kind of give the game away?

They had their day in court

At the end they got the chance to see their man in court.

Some two dozen union activists who had been blacklisted thanks to the activities of the Economic League and one of it's successors, The Consulting Association, got to confront Ian Kerr. The man who left the League to run the TCA until he was busted back in February.

Kerr arrived at court at 8.30am to ensure he got in before anyone else. He appeared from an ante-room at the last minute to stand in the dock and you could feel the ranks of those in the public gallery looking slightly unsure.

He looked his 66 years. Thin, 6ft, grey hair, grey suit, grey demenour, cocking his head to listen intently to the evidence, his eyes flicking nervously behind his glasses. His wife was in court. He had one legal representative. The prosecution had half a dozen. The public gallery was packed; but all they could see was his back flanked by some security guards. Kerr looked alone. The spotlight wasn't meant to fall on him.

For some of the guys in the gallery this man had been plaguing them for most of their working lives. The faceless corporations which employed him and financed the Consulting Association as their front were less tangible. Here was the physical embodiment of the secret blight that had been visited upon them.

If they were unsure at first that disappeared as the facts of the case were read out. There were regular heckles from the gallery. The TCA was funded, at one time or another, by some 40 construction companies - pretty much all the big names - and for 15 years it acted as private vetting agency collating gossip, newspaper clippings, union minutes, toilet graffiti and info from companies. If your name was one of more than 3,000 on their list you weren't getting in.

When the court heard that Kerr's assets amounted to £12,000 in savings, a house and state pension it was clear that there would be no punative fine. As the judge made clear at the beginning there is no case history to guide him. The £5,000 fine was met with shouts of disgust from the gallery. Kerr remained, as throughout, silent.

Meanwhile the best the ICO could do with the companies behind Kerr was to issue them a warning. The civil courts might have the last say on the matter.

There were only two ways out of court so there would be no avoiding his accusers for Kerr. After a short delay he came out the back hiding under an umbrella and got swiftly into a car and put a newspaper over his face. His was car was surrounded and suddenly the shouting took off. People really let rip. There were a few bangs on the car while the horn sounded continuously. After a few minutes a security guard stepped in and allowed the car to speed off.

This autumn the government will finally make good on its pledge to outlaw blacklisting and unions are likely to extract some compensation from the construction industry. This chapter is closing.

Shortly after Kerr left one worker told me that he had just taken a call from a colleague. He'd been given his papers from a construction job in Manchester for seemingly no reason.

My piece for Computer Weekly begins:

Construction companies which paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to a secret blacklisting operation escaped prosecution today.

A judge fined Ian Kerr, the man responsible for co-ordinating the operation, £5,000 but said while he was not the only person to blame he was "in the firing line".

The Information Commissioner's Office, which brought the case, said it was looking at issuing information notices against 17 construction companies which financed the blacklisting warning them as to their future behaviour.

There were angry scenes as Kerr left the building hiding in the back of car while some of those who had been blacklisted shouted abuse and banged on the vehicle. Many said they were disappointed both at the small fine and that the construction companies had not been prosecuted.

Carry on reading here.

Other coverage from today's sentencing:

Daily Mail

The Guardian

BBC

The Daily (Maybe)

Ten Percent

The Hidden Paw

Blacklisting consultation begins

I'm off to leafy Cheshire next week to cover the sentencing of Ian Kerr of The Consulting Association - found guilty of data protection breaches by running a secret blacklist of trade union members.
And yesterday Lord Mandelson unveiled the government's short sharp consultation which should lead to this practice being outlawed.
It is a year since my article on blacklisting prompted the investigation by the Infomation Commissioner's Office; six years since the government last consulted and found no evidence, ten years since the original employment legislation was introduced but with the blacklisting clause held in abeyance and 90 years since the Economic League was founded which turned the blacklisting of 'subversives' into an industrial-sized operation.
The main proposals are:
To make it unlawful for organisations to refuse employment or sack individuals as a result of appearing on a blacklist; to make it unlawful for employment agencies to refuse to provide a service on the basis of appearing on a blacklist; and to enable individuals or unions to pursue compensation or solicit action against those who compile, distribute or use blacklists.
There is a clause exempting journalists who obtain blacklists as part of exposing their existence.

Here are some comments on yesterday's announcement:
The Daily Mirror queries why this has taken so long
The Guardian links the story with a report calling for increased regulation to stop people being killed at work. An issue I covered for them back in 2007.
Over at Personnel Today they set up a head-to-head on the issue between Ben Willmott, senior public policy adviser at the CIPD, and Michael Gorrill, head of the Regulatory Action Division at the Information Commissioner's Office. An interesting way of covering the story.
Ian Manborde asks whether simply making laws is enough to eradicate blacklisting. This is something I believe Mandelson has acknowledged - that the process could be shipped overseas. That's not a reason for doing nothing though; that's a reason for making a start on the bits you can fix quickly.
The TUC are happy, UCATT also pleased but add:  "We are disappointed that the consultation document fails to recommend any compensation for existing victims of blacklists.”

To view the consultation visit the BERR web site.

This is what a blacklist database looks like

This is a picture of (half of ) Ian Kerr's blacklist database. If you are at all familar with how police local intelligence files are organised then apparently this set up should look pretty similar. Below is what a page from a blacklist file looks like.

Kerr pleads guilty to running blacklist database

A man has pleaded guilty to running a covert database containing personal information used to blacklist more than 3,000 construction workers...full story here at Computer Weekly and a follow-up item for the same magazine by me here.

Good background on Kerr dug up by The Guardian, including Kerr's Economic Leaguee= links.

It was a long drive up this morning to cover the court case in Macclesfield and then something of a farce as the court booked was too small for the union people, press and solicitors.

But Kerr's solicitor eventually made his client's guilty plea to breaking data protection laws and he will now go to crown court for sentencing.

Below is a picture of some of the blacklisted construction workers demonstrating outside the court.