Taking Out The Trash

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.

Mr Blacklister, meet the blacklisted

Ucatt has just announced it's going to organise a demo outside Macclesfield magistrates court where Ian Kerr is due to appear next Wednesday on data protection charges having run a blacklisting operation for construction companies.
Several workers I have spoken to over the last few months who suffered because of Mr Kerr's operation are relishing the opportunity to wish him every success when he appears before the beak.

Commentating on the blacklist

While I'm trying to find outlets interested in taking copy from next week's trial of the man accused of running a trade union blacklist; a couple of papers have published comment pieces.
Tribune has a piece from Labour NEC member Ellie Reeves while the Morning Star has a piece from Ucatt general secretary Alan Ritchie. This last inspires a combative retort from supporters of Mick Dooley who is contesting Ritchie for the top job at the builders union.

Interview with a blacklisting whistleblower

Further to my post last night, here is the article by Rob Evans which provides fresh backgrond on the blacklisting scandal.

It's an interview with Alan Wainwright who has been fighting a lonely battle for several years now to expose blacklisting. What makes his story different is that he comes from the employers side. However, once he went public with his concerns, he found himself treated just like the other 'troublesome' workers and jobs were suddenly diffuclt to come by.

Alan has set up a blog which has an enormous amount of material on it detailing his story.

Both are well worth a read.

Tribune has a report on the latest developments. Both candidates for the leadership of the builders union Ucatt have found they had files held on them.

New background on blacklisting operation to be revealed tomorrow

Regular readers of this blog will know my obsession interest in the blacklisting scandal which has recently enveloped the construction industry.
I understand the Guardian is to carry tomorrow a very interesting article in the business section which adds more background to the on-going story.

Meanwhile, as of end of April, the Information Commissioner's Office hotline, where people can check if they were on Ian Kerr's files has had 1,165 calls, 242 information packs have been sent out, 124 have been returned and 122 individual files have been issued. There were more than 3,000 people on Kerr's files . . . so where are all these workers now?

Update: Construction News reports that Ucatt is considering a group civil claim against construction companies. Over at the Socialist Party and they report on a meeting at Fiddlers Ferry which several blacklisted electricians have mentioned to me is a site where they have found it difficult to get work.

Government confirms action on blacklisting

Peter Maundelson confirmed today that the government is to launch a short consultation in the summer on making blacklisting illegal with the aim of bringing in any legislation by the autumn.

Rob Evans over at the Guardian had news on this yesterday although I predicted this would happen in a piece for Tribune nearly two weeks ago which I originally posted a week before that.

The statement from the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform says:

The government will launch a consultation in the early summer on revised regulations. As there has already been a full consultation in 2003, this second consultation will be shorter than the usual twelve week period. The short consultation is necessary to ensure that the regulations take full account of developments since 2003 and are up to date and fit for purpose. It will enable interested parties to give feedback on how the regulations can be refined and improved.

Ministers plan to seek Parliamentary approval for the regulations in the autumn and implement them urgently as soon as it can thereafter.

It has been welcomed by the TUC but construction union is disappointed that any action will be delayed.

Update May 12 12.39pm:

Some of the stories which have followed up on this

Letter in the Sheffield Star

Firms may yet face legal action, according to Building magazine.

Chartered Institute of Personnel Directors

New Civil Engineer

Contract Journal

Silobreaker

and some more:

Bradford Telegraph & ArgusXpert HR

Xpert HR

BBC

The Ucatt statement also raises the interesting point that the Information Commissioner wants to destroy the blacklisting files it has recovered once everybody has had a chance to get hold of their file.

Mr Ritchie (Alan Ritchie, general secretary), said: “UCATT has written to all members telling them how they can discover whether they were blacklisted but not every construction worker is a UCATT member. There is an urgent need for all construction workers and former construction workers to be able to find out if they were blacklisted. Until that process is exhausted then it is wrong for the records to be destroyed.”

I actually think it might be nice to keep them (suitably redacted) as some kind of historical resource for future researchers.

Update 16.20pm: ICO has just issued this statement:

“The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) will only keep the personal details seized from The Consulting Association for as long as necessary. However, we are naturally keen for those people on Ian Kerr’s system to have the opportunity to come forward and find out what information was held about them. We are keeping the timescales involved in this matter under review and no firm date to destroy the information has been set.”

PMQs

For the second week running blacklists were raised at Prime Minister's Questions. (And for the second week running the BBC didn't bother to report it).

This time Brown raised it himself which may have been in response to the mass lobby of Parliament which had just taken place (see previous post).

Q8.    [272709] Jim Sheridan (Paisley and Renfrewshire, North) (Lab): My right hon. Friend will be well aware of the difficulties facing employers and employees in the construction industry—problems that have been further compounded by the activities of illegal gangmasters. Will he therefore agree to meet me and other like-minded colleagues to talk through the issues involving illegal gangmasters in the construction industry?

The Prime Minister: I am happy to do so. This issue concerns me and anybody who looks at the performance of the construction industry. We are also, as I said last week, looking at the operation of illegal blacklists in the construction industry, which is an unacceptable practice.

Could McAlpines be the first firm taken to a tribunal over blacklisting?

Update 9.07am: Piece in The Guardian today about a demonstration taking place this morning outside the Olympic site. Interesting quote from one organiser:

"We are targeting the Olympic site because it is the highest profile construction project in the UK," said the spokesman, who asked not to be named for fear that he will be blacklisted (my emphasis) by employers. "Across the country construction workers are concerned they are not getting a fair deal. We will be calling for 100% direct employment on the Olympic site and we don't want to see any agency workers."

More coverage here and in the Morning Star.

Meanwhile union official Michael Dooley has just issued a press release announcing what looks like the first employment tribunal claim arising out of the construction industry blacklisting scandal.

The release says:

A former Bricklayer who was named on the Construction Blacklisted because of his Trade Union activity has made the first claim to the Employment Tribunal. Michael Dooley has last week 27th April 2009 registered a claim against major contractor Sir Robert McAlpine after recently receiving official confirmation of his 16 page Blacklist file

The Tribunal office in South London has accepted his claim and should hear Dooleys case in a matter of months. The case centers on a Documentation that was seized by the governments Information Commissioner when officials raided an office in Droitwich in the West Midlands occupied by the Consulting Association in March 2009.

Director of the Consulting Association was Ian Kerr. Kerr kept files on over 3,000 building workers who where trade union members, this file referred to as a Blacklist was supplied to many major building contractor one of which, it is reported was Sir Robert McAlpine. Contractors paid an annual subscription reported to be £3,000. Requests for information on ‘subject’ was made the Consulting Association’ provided the information at a charge of £2.20p a time.

Dooley lodged the claim as soon as he was aware that his name was on the file, his documentation runs to some 15 pages of information dating back to 1977 and ending in 1999, shortly after he became a Full Time Official of a Trade Union in London.

Dooley said ‘we stood up to bullying subcontractors and fought for decent wages and conditions when it was right to do so.  I heard stories of a Blacklist but it was a situation where either I accepted the unacceptable and keep my head down or say no that not right”

Dooley added ‘ I wanted to make sure that conditions where safe and wages where paid correctly, there is inevitably a conflict with some employers. So I regularly varied my details including my union, my name, National Insurance even my accent, but it is the more sinister information contained on my Blacklist that I am very angry about information of a personal nature, more than just my employment record.  My file contained personal information, some of which must have originated from Government departments and other information that was alarmingly incorrect.

An Employment tribunal may not have the jurisdiction to hear Dooleys claim because of time limits on bringing claims. However if what Dooley said is found to be true that he was refused work on several McAlpine sites after being involved in an industrial dispute on one of their sites it could be embarrassing to McAlpines. The question remaining  will be why was a reputable major contractor involved in the practices which could bring so much disrepute to them and to the industry?

ENDS

When I contacted McAlpines about the original blacklisting story I got a swift and straight  'no comment'. I expect the same here until / if this goes to court.

Update: Story also covered by Contract Journal and Heating and Ventilating Net.

Forecasting government action on blacklisting

Tribune this week carries an article by me reading the runes on how the government might proceed over the blacklisting scandal.
If you're a glass-half-empty person then the government is preparing for a long consultation in the hope that the issue will go away/an election will take people's minds off it.
If you're more of a half-full person then the signals from Brown et al are that the necessary legal changes are ready to be made once a few hoops have been jumped through.
My original article to Tribune was more on the empty side but it's come out in the editing as more positive. Well, you pays your money etc etc.

Meanwhile: no sign of my book review on Jason Cowley's The Last Game just yet but the digested read is: "Unmissable for Gooners, unbearable for Liverpool fans and unecessary for all those uninterested in sport."

Blacklisting in publishing

Interesting snippet from an interview in The Guardian with Claire Walsh - long-term partner of the writer J G Ballard.

It says:

When they first met, Walsh was politically engaged on the left. "My contribution to the women's movement was to try to organise trade unions at publishing companies where I worked to get women better paid. I lost my job over that and was blacklisted."

You can read the full interview here.