Taking Out The Trash

Blacklisting proposals fail human rights test, says parliamentary report

A report released today by the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights criticises the government's proposed regulations aimed at outlawing blacklisting.

The report, Any of our Business? Human Rights and the UK Private Sector, looks at how businesses need to take account of human rights legislation and concerns.

In what must have been a very late addition to the report, it raises concerns about new laws on blacklisting.

The report emphasises evidence from UCATT as well as Prof Keith Ewing that the proposals do not go far enough.

It says:

"We doubt the compatibility of the Government’s blacklisting proposals with the UK’s international human rights obligations. We recommend that the Government provide a full explanation of its argument that the proposals are compatible. This should include a response to the criticism of the Institute of Employment Rights, that these proposals fail to provide an adequate remedy for those individuals who have already been affected by blacklisting."

And it promises:

"In the light of the Government’s explanation, we anticipate revisiting this issue."

A PDF copy of the report can be downloaded here.

Several Labour MPs have been pressing for the committee to investigate blacklisting so that those involved can be properly scrutinised and regulations drawn as effectively as possible.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said:

“This report backs up TUC concerns that UK industrial relations laws – including the proposed regulations on blacklisting – are out of line with international human rights standards.

“The blacklisting regulations need rethinking, and the Government needs to come up with a new strategy on human rights at work, at home and where British companies operate abroad.”

Yesterday an Early Day Motion was put which called on the government to ammend its proposals in order to ensure blacklisting can effectively be outlawed.

The government says the regulations will need to go before both houses of parliament and aims to have them on the statuate book in the New Year.

See the BBC report Trafigura is trying to gag

Via, oooh, lots of people including A Very Public Sociologist and Liberal Conspiracy comes the opportunity to stick it to a large multinational with nasty lawyers.

On his blog, Don't Get Fooled Again, Richard Wilson writes:

Late last week the BBC chose to delete from its website a damning Newsnight investigation into the Trafigura scandal, following legal threats from the company and its controversial lawyers, Carter-Ruck.

The mainstream UK media has so far assiduously avoided reporting on the BBC’s climbdown. Yet it’s an issue that raises serious questions about the state of press freedom in Britain, at a time of unprecedented attacks on the media.

So here is that film and here's a link to this censored report of Trafigura's activities

Think of it as an early Christmas treat and remember, it's better to give than receive so pass it on.

Footballers 1, Bosses 0

At some point I'll post up copies of all the responses to the government's consultation on the new blacklisting rules.

But as a morsel I thought I'd report in full what Gordon Taylor, from the Professional Footballers' Association, had to say.

"I approve the revised draft regulations to outlaw the blacklisting of Trade Unions."

It's to the point, give him that.

Compare and contrast this extract from the CBI's response.

"Regulations should only be enacted when the matter is of national importance. Whether that is the case here when only one example of the to-be-prohibited activity has taken place - and that has been prosecuted via a different route, with significant publicity to ward of any other possible malefactors - has to be open to question. CBI members do not feel this is a proportionate response to the problem as thus revealed."

Which is quite out of step with the majority of responses; so I'm not sure that all CBI members do feel this.

For instance construction firm Amec, in its response, said that it felt the regulations were proportionate. Indeed the tone of many responses from the business community has been that regulations are necessary - they just want them kept limited.

The CBI says it is the 'voice of business' and if that's your USP then you have to protect it. If you look at CBI members in the construction sector you'll find plenty of familiar names who helped fund The Consulting Association's illegal blacklisting operation.

Meanwhile the campaign to crackdown on blacklisting went global with a UCATT motion backed by construction unions around world agreed at a conference in France.

Other comments on the latest developments at the Bristol Trade Union Forum and Northern Voices.

Parish council opens £550,000 affordable housing and community facility

Update: story covered by the Bath Chronicle and Western Daily Press (I've seen the print edition but can't find a link to the storry online). A very friendly photographer from the Gazette & Herald came over so we'll see what they do. Also spoke with Regeneration & Renewal about a feature.

*** Photo and interview opportunity ***

 An ambitious project by a rural parish council to provide affordable housing and community facilities will be officially opened this weekend (Saturday December 12).

Colerne Parish Council in Wiltshire bought the village’s dilapidated 150-year-old former school building in 2005 (pictured before refurbishment). The council consulted with residents on plans to completely refurbish the Old School.

The aim was to provide a better home for the playgroup, which was a long-term user, improved community rooms for hire on the ground floor and a new second floor which would have four, affordable one-person flats aimed at meeting local housing need.

 Following planning permission, building work on the £550,000 project began in 2008 and has now been completed on time and on budget.

This is the first such affordable accommodation supplied in the village for many years. The parish council will be the landlord for the new tenants.

This Friday Colerne residents will get their first chance to tour the new building in a series of guided visits with the official opening on Saturday before the new tenants move in on Monday.

Symon Doliczny, Chairman of Colerne Parish Council, said: “The community has always wanted to see the Old School kept in use but it’s been a question of making the project sustainable.

“When negotiations started five years ago we knew it would take imagination and hard work to make it possible.

“The success of this project is down to the volunteers on the parish council and in the community working with other organisations to turn an idea into reality.

“Now we really have a building to be proud of. This is an early Christmas present for us all.”

Richard Tonge, Colerne Parish Council member, who has driven the project from the start, said: “There was a distinct possibility that the community could have lost the building to a private developer. We’ve secured it for future generations and done so without putting a financial burden upon them.

“We’ve refurbished the historic building to a high standard and it is now far more energy efficient.

“More than that we’ve been able to provide low-cost rented accommodation for single people in our village. We’ve also got a permanent home for the parish council, there is a much-improved venue for our playgroup and there is a better choice of facilities for community groups.

“We’re only a small parish council but we were determined to take on and see through this project because we knew we could make it work.”

The ground-floor comprises two community rooms, including a kitchen, toilets and a parish council office. There is a new disabled-friendly access. The popular village playgroup now has a modern and well-equipped home with a kitchen and toilet facilities. There is also a new storage and play area at the back.

The four flats on the second floor each have a cooking area and bathroom.

Funding for the scheme included £260,000 in grants from the former North Wiltshire District Council, £213,000 from the sale of the former parish council offices and an £80,000 loan from the Public Works Loan Board. The project has been backed by Wiltshire Council and local housing associations.

The running costs of the building will be met from rents and hire charges so that the facility does not become a drain on the parish council’s budget.

ENDS

Notes for editors:

Photo opportunity: The Old School will be open to residents on Friday December 11 at 1.30pm and press and photographers are invited to attend. On hand will be former pupils of the Old School taking their first look around the new building. Also there will be parish council representatives, residents and children from the village school. There will be displays about the project including pictures of the work and the building as it used to look.

The official opening takes place on Saturday December 12 from 2pm-4pm with invited special guests. Press and photographers are again welcome to attend.

A second public open day takes place on Sunday December 13 from 11am-4pm.

Pictures from the Friday event will be available from Monday December 14 for press use. Telephone interviews with those connected with the project can also be arranged. Please contact parish councillor Phil Chamberlain.

The Old School is on Vicarage Lane, Colerne. Please park in the nearby Market Place if you wish to attend as there is no parking outside the building.

Background information:

Architects for the project were Brooks Chartered Surveyors in Bath (see www.brookscharteredsurveyors.co.uk)

Principal builders were Gregory Thain from Box, Wiltshire (see www.gregorythain.co.uk)

Also supplying building services were Case & Trotman from Colerne

In 2005 the parish council sold its premises in the centre of the village and bought the Old School building from The Bristol Diocesan Board of Finance and The Trustees of Colerne Educational Foundation.

According to records held by Wiltshire Council, the original school was opened in 1853 but by the 1950s the school was already proving too small for the 180 children on the register. A new school was built which was ready in 1964 and the children moved into it in January 1965.

The Parish of Colerne is located between Bath and Chippenham and sits in the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The council is made up of 13 volunteer members and a part-time clerk who serve a community of some 2,000 people including the military base at Azimghur Barracks.

ENDS

A winter Lobster

Lobster - the journal of parapolitics - has been published twice a year in print form since 1983; and today becomes an online only magazine.

Here's the table of  contents for the winter 2009/2010 issue:

• John Booth:
  Arnhem 65 years on
• Phil Chamberlain:
  The construction industry blacklist: how the Economic League lived on
• 'a consultant' reviews Alpha Dogs
• Robert Henderson:
  Laissez faire as religion
• Solomon Hughes:
  The curious case of Prospect
• Simon Matthews:
  The life and times of Simon Dee
• Robin Ramsay:
  The miners and the secret state The economic crisis Subservience to America
• Dr. T. P. Wilkinson:
  Superstition and Farce: the survival of the Inquisition in American political culture
• Book review

You can download a copy for yourself by visiting Lobster's website.

What a difference a week makes

Update: The Morning Star has a good comment on this

Update II: Building magazine reports that solicitors Guney Clark & Ryan is ready next month to begin formal legal proceedings against more than 40 companies in a class action suit that, in that favourite phrase of journalists, "could cost millions". They're using the Data Protection Act to bring the action. Amusing aside: the partner handling the case is Sean Curran who has also represented singer Pete Doherty.

Update III: Impassioned comment piece by Prof Keith Ewing in the Morning Star on the failures of the proposed legislation. Construction News on how MPs are being urged to amend the working when it comes before the house. (Having spoken to several and union officials one thing is clear - no-one has the foggiest what the process will be. How can the system be so opaque?)

*******

A little under a week ago the Government published its response to the consultation on outlawing blacklisting.

Its proposed regulations were cautiously welcomed - until people actually had a chance to read them.

Employment law expert Prof Keith Ewing reckons they're not worth the paper they are written on and several MPs who followed the issue closely are similarly disappointed.

Today UCATT, which last week broadly welcomed the publication, issues a stinging condemnation of its detail. In a statement it says:

Construction union UCATT fears that new regulations designed to outlaw blacklisting contain so many loopholes they will not deter the practice. In fact the Government’s consultation document appears to give the green light to employers to blacklist in certain circumstances.

In Ruined Lives UCATT’s submission to the blacklisting consultation, the union argued that the regulations should not just make it illegal to blacklist for “trade union activities” but should prevent blacklisting for “activities associated with trade unions”. The Government has totally ignored this key concern.

The difference is clearest in the event of workers stopping work due to serious safety concerns. This is considered to be unofficial industrial action. Such unofficial industrial action, which is legal, would not be covered by the proposed regulations and companies could continue to discriminate workers who took part in such a stoppage.

The Government’s response appears to encourage this. It says: “. The Government believes such [unofficial] industrial action is especially disruptive and injurious to orderly industrial relations because, by definition, the trade union has not endorsed and controlled it.”

Alan Ritchie, General Secretary of UCATT, said: “The Government has repeatedly promised to outlaw blacklisting. The proposed regulations fail to achieve this. Not only are these regulations entirely inadequate, the Government’s consultation response favours the continuation of blacklisting in certain circumstances.”

The Government also fails to address the routine blacklisting of safety representatives and campaigners, which was a notable feature of the Consulting Association’s blacklisting practices.

The Government gives credit to the Heating and Ventilating Contractors Association call that, “vetting of prospective employees was necessary to weed out trouble-makers, criminal elements or other undesirable people”. Its document says: “virtually all vetting activity which should normally have nothing to do with trade union matters, is left unaffected”. The Government’s response also clearly says it, “does not consider that a safety exemption should be created”.

UCATT are highly disturbed that the failure to specifically protect safety representatives and the allowance of “vetting” for activities other than trade union matters, will mean that these workers will continue to be considered by employers to be “trouble-makers” and “undesirable people” and as such will continue to be blacklisted.

As I write in an article for Tribune this week - the dilemma for campaigners is whether to try and amend the regulations as they pass though Parliament and face losing the proposal outright if they run out of time ahead of a general election, or accept what is being offered in the hope of amending it in the future.

A week ago they might have taken what is offered - now I'm not so sure.

Meanwhile I've had a couple more responses to my FOI requests to police forces for information held by them on The Consulting Association and its boss Ian Kerr.

As reported previously, both the Met and West Mercia could neither confirm nor deny holding information and denied my request on various exemptions including the security services and national security.

Greater Manchester Police have now given the same response citing the following exemptions:

Section 23(5) – Information relating to Security Bodies
Section 24(2) – National Security
Section 30(3) – Criminal Investigations
Section 31(3) – Law Enforcement
Section 38(2) – Health and Safety
Section 40(5) – Personal Information

However Merseyside Police have written to tell me:

In this case we have not yet reached a decision on where the balance of the public interest lies in respect of either of the above obligations. Therefore we plan to let you have a response by 18/12/09.  If it appears that it will take longer than this to reach a conclusion, you will be kept informed.

The specific exemption(s) which apply in relation to your request is/are;

Section 24 National Security
Section 30 Criminal Investigations
Section 31 Law Enforcement
Section 38 Health & Safety

which require public interest tests. This is what is currently taking place.

I know they could ultimately refuse and neither confirm nor deny information is held. However, is it just me or could there only be a public interest test to be applied if there is information to consider? Or is that the act of releasing in theory needs to be tested? I feel like I'm getting into Rumsfeld's known unknowns so any FOI experts out there who can shine a light would be most welcome.

Waving, not drowning

Obviously not up to the standard of Marc Vallee but some pix from the Wave demo on Saturday.

 

Government announces rules outlawing blacklisting

This press release was issued this morning by the Dept for Business, Innovation and Skills

Update: See below for response from UCATT.

Update II: Report by Computer Weekly on this as well as one by the Morning Star and Unite the union has issued a press release. And a Facebook site has been set up to defend blacklisted electrician Steve Acheson.

Update III: Prof Keith Ewing, employment law expert from King's College London who wrote the UCATT report Ruined Lives, called the proposed legislation "disgraceful" and added: "In their present form the regulations are not worth having; they change nothing, give no new rights, and its is a delusion to think otherwise."

BLACKLISTING TO BE OUTLAWED

It will be unlawful for trade union members to be denied employment through blacklists under plans outlined by Employment Relations Minister Lord Young today.

To prevent employers from blacklisting workers for their trade union membership or activities the Government will introduce new rules banning the practice. The move comes as the Government publishes its response to a public consultation on the subject held over the summer, and follows evidence that a number of employers in the construction sector had been unlawfully vetting workers.

Employment Relations Minister Lord Young said:

“Blacklisting someone because they are a member of a trade union is totally unacceptable.

“There is already legal protection against the misuse of people’s personal details. We will now strengthen the law by introducing new regulations to outlaw the compilation, dissemination and use of blacklists.

“The Government is determined to stamp out this despicable practice and our legislative proposals are a proportionate and robust response”.

The regulations will:

• make it unlawful for organisations to refuse employment or sack individuals as a result of appearing on a blacklist;
• make it unlawful for employment agencies to refuse to provide a service on the basis of appearing on a blacklist; and
• enable individuals or unions to pursue compensation or solicit action against those who compile, distribute or use blacklists. 

The Government plans to table the regulations for Parliament to consider as soon as possible.   They will need to be debated and approved by each House before they can be implemented.  Provided Parliament gives its approval, the regulations could be brought into effect early next year.

Notes to Editors
1.      Under section 3 of the Employment Relations Act 1999, the government has the power to introduce regulations prohibiting the blacklisting of workers for their union membership or activities.

2.      In March the Information Commissioner reported that 40 construction companies had subscribed to a database used to vet construction workers, which has now been closed under data protection law.  On 16 July, Mr Ian Kerr, the individual who operated the database, was fined £5,000 at Knutsford Crown Court for committing a criminal offence under data protection law.   

3.      In response to this new evidence on 11 May 2009, the government announced that it would seek to bring forward legislation to outlaw blacklisting – the statement to Parliament can be found here http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/cm090511/wmstext/90511m0001.htm#column_33WS

4.      A public consultation on revised draft regulations took place between 7 July and 18 August this year. The Government response to the public consultation can be viewed here: http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file53734.pdf

Update: UCATT's response

Construction union UCATT have welcomed today’s publication (December 2) by the Department of Business of the new regulations designed to outlaw the blacklisting of trade unionists.

Alan Ritchie, General Secretary of UCATT, said: “Blacklisting is a disgraceful, underhand practice. Until early this year most major construction companies were involved in the blacklisting of workers. The introductions of laws, which are designed to prevent blacklisting, are welcome and long overdue. Never again must the lives of workers and their families be ruined because of blacklisting.”

The Government’s publication of the regulations follows a consultation exercise earlier this year. In its response to the consultation UCATT published a document Ruined Lives which argued that the regulations should be strengthened in order to ensure that all forms of blacklisting are eradicated.

Specifically UCATT called for the regulations to be extended to cover all “activities associated with trade unions”, that the discovery of a blacklist should result in it being automatically forfeited, maintaining a blacklist should be a specific criminal offence and being blacklisted should result in an automatic award for basic compensation.

The regulations need to be debated by both Houses of Parliament before becoming law. UCATT will explore with sympathetic backbench Labour MPs if the regulations can be strengthened when they are debated in the House of Commons.

Mr Ritchie, added: “UCATT will be working with members of Parliament in order to ensure that when the blacklisting regulations are finally introduced they are as robust as possible.”