Taking Out The Trash

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.

PM on blacklisting: let's consult again

At Prime Minister's Questions yesterday Michael Clapham asked Gordon Brown about the prospects for a change in the law to make blacklisting illegal.

Q5. [269364] Mr. Michael Clapham (Barnsley, West and Penistone) (Lab): The Prime Minister will be aware that the Information Commissioner recently found concrete evidence that blacklisting was widespread in the construction industry. Given that there was a consultation exercise in 2003, does he agree that it is now time to bring in the regulations to prohibit blacklisting, rather than—and before—going to a further consultation?

The Prime Minister: I am, as are the whole Government, very concerned by the evidence uncovered by the Information Commissioner about the re-emergence of blacklisting in the construction industry. In 1999, we established a power to introduce regulations to outlaw blacklisting, and we also consulted on draft regulations in 2003. Evidence at that time suggested that blacklisting had been eradicated but, given that there is new evidence that that is not the case, we are looking urgently at what we can do. We will assess whether the 2003 regulations, amended as necessary, should now be introduced to the House of Commons.

Update: UCATT has just issued a press release which takes a more positive line on Brown's comments (perhaps to paint him to a corner) and reveals that former minister Ian McCartney, who intoduced the original legislation, is now in favour of a ban.

An extra from the release says:

In response to Mr Brown’s statement Alan Ritchie General Secretary of construction union UCATT, said: “I am pleased that the Prime Minister has clearly indicated that blacklisting will be banned.
"It is monstrous that in the 21^st century the majority of major construction companies were engaged in blacklisting. They were content to deny work simply because of a persons union membership or because they had tried to improve site safety.”  ... 
Meanwhile Ian McCartney the former minister, who in 1999 was responsible for introducing the Fairness at Work Act, has written to UCATT expressing his full support for the regulations to outlaw blacklisting being enacted at the earliest opportunity.
Mr McCartney, said: “The Government now has to hand the evidence required to prove the existence of blacklisting in the construction industry and that the commitment to enact the relevant sections of the 1999 Act should be implemented without delay.”

 
A piece I have just written for Tribune takes up the same theme. A BERR spokesman told me that the gobvernment was planning to issue a consultation document in the summer. Whether that counts as "urgent" is one thing - whether another around of consultation is needed is another.

My first couple of pars of my article are below.

The government looks set to carry out a consultation on possible changes to employment legislation to outlaw blacklisting.

It follows a raid earlier this year by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on a firm in the

Midlands

which compiled files on trade union activists. Investigators also uncovered invoices from some 40 construction companies which subscribed to The Consulting Association.

In a House of Commons debate a month ago, employment minister Pat Mcfadden, said he and his officials would be studying the evidence seized by the ICO closely and would “come to a conclusion in the near future”.

Now a spokesman for the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform says that it “will hold meetings with interested parties though April and issue a consultation document in the summer”.

Next month Ian Kerr, who ran The Consulting Association, is due to appear before Macclesfield Magistrates Court charged with offences under the Data Protection Act. Kerr kept files on more than 3,000 people in total with detailed information on around 1,600.

ENDS

Bosses spies are loo-dicrous

Good piece from union member Steve Kelly about being on Ian Kerr's blacklist of construction workers.

Kelly obtained his file from the Information Commissioner's Office. He says:

"It was an 18 page document containing allegations that I was a “trouble maker”, “trade union militant” , “strike organiser” , “intimidating workers to join the union”, “threatening supervisors”, and even “writing abuse on the toilet walls”!"

So, was it some poor sap's job to inspect toilet graffiti and match it against suspect employees? That time could perhaps have been better spent insuring people were not needlessly being killed or injured at work one thinks.

note: if you think you can do a better pun for a headline then you try it.

Olympic firms caught up in blacklisting scandal

Not being a regular visitor to t'capital I've only just picked up the report from Thursday's London Evening Standard pointing out that several firms named as having paid a firm providing blacklisting services have won contracts from the Olympic Delivery Authority.

When I spoke with an ICO investigator last year as they were about to start their probe it was specifically the prospect that the publicly funded Olympic projects could be ensared in blacklisting practices that sparked their interest.

Angry MPs urge Government to act now to end blacklist shame

Tribune this week carries my story on the latest debate in Parliament over the blacklisting of trade union workers - an issue reported on by  The Guardian and exposed through an ICO investigation.

LABOUR MPs angry at the construction industry blacklist designed to prevent union activists from getting work on building sites in Britain have condemned the Government response and suggested firms might end up on a blacklist of their own.

The idea is that companies which subscribed to the controversial blacklist – supplied by consultant Ian Kerr to more than 40 firms including Balfour Beatty, Costain and McAlpine – should not get public sector work.

Michael Clapham, MP for Barnsley West & Penistone, said: “The fact that the public sector was the client in just over 31 per cent of construction output in 2006, making it the industry’s largest customer, suggests that the government, as a major client, has some responsibility to use the powerful lever that exists to ensure that companies who use blacklists are not engaged on projects.”

You can read the rest here.

There is an excellent background piece on the ICO investigation in Building magazine which I've only just picked up on.

This debate in the House of Lords yesterday (Thursday April 2) touches on the issue.

It's not the weakness of your voice that concerns me

Last night's adjournment debate in the House of Commons the blacklisting scandal offered little to those MPs pressing for a change in the law.

The 1999 Employment Act contained provisions for outlawing the practice but the relevant regulations were never brought in and subsequent consultations led the government put the proposal on ice. Its reasoning was that there was no evidence of blacklisting.

The revelations, first outlined in The Guardian, that the Information Commissioner had uncovered not just a blacklist compiled by The Consulting Association but the names of some 40 consturction companies which had subscribed to the firm appeared to offer the evidence required.

Last night Pat McFadden, the minister for Employment Relations and Postal Affairs, said he shared members concerns - but wasn't going to bow to their demands. McFadden said that officials from his department had helped with the ICO investigation and spent two days reviewing the evidence subsequently seized.

Battling a sore throat he said:

"The Secretary of State and I will examine the evidence in the case and we will examine the papers. We will take the matter seriously and the Government will make a decision on how to proceed. Let me reiterate that I share the deep concern that my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Michael Clapham, who called the debate) has expressed about the revelations that have been made. We need to address the matter diligently and speedily. I assure him that we share his concern about the reports. We will examine the papers and the evidence and we will come to a conclusion in the near future."

But there was a withering comment from Labour MP Ken Purchase who said:

"It is not the weakness of your voice that concerns me, but the weakness of the response that our Government are making."

Meanwhile one MP suggested that subscriber companies might face their own blacklist.

Ian Davidson, the Labour MP for Glasgow South-West, said:

"Obviously, the Government have to take action on this matter, but in the absence of immediate action, would my hon. Friend (Michael Clapham) arrange for other Members throughout the House to be informed of the list of construction companies that have been operating the blacklist so that we can take it up with housing associations, councils and other organisations in our constituencies?"

Meanwhile the number of MPs to sign Michael Clapham's Early Day Motion on this issue has risen to 90.

600 ring blacklisting hotline

According to the ICO, its hotline for workers who fear they have been on a blacklist held by a company used by the construction industry has received 600 calls in its first week of operation.

Of which about 80 people found that they were indeed on The Consulting Association's database.

Michael Clapham's adjournment debate is scheduled for tonight.

Parliamentary debate on blacklisting

Michael Clapham has secured an end of day adjournment debate on Monday evening to discuss blacklisting in the construction industry. I'll be tuning in to parliament tv online (is there something better to watch at 1pm?)

Meanwhile Pits'n'Pots gets a local (ie Staffordshire) angle on the story and London Progressive Journal has piece by Unite's Steve Kelly.