Taking Out The Trash

Card sharp

Rather like this from George Monbiot - top ten climate change deniers as playing cards.
Shame he missed off our own Roger Helmer MEP who used his EU funding to make a DVD decrying global warming theories.

Blacklist update part 5

At some point I'm going to collate the various follow-ups and updates on the blacklisting story into one post but in the meantime....

(New readers start here: Last year I wrote a story for The Guardian on blacklisting. Following this the Information Commissioner launched an investigation. This week that resulted in a vetting agency being shut down and dozens of construction companies named as clients. And Rob Evans and I at The Guardian got the scoop which was widely picked up. This is a collection of links to those follow ups. See here, here and here for my two other updates.)

I mentioned on the last post that the role of the HR sector in all this would be worth investigating. The initial indications are they don't really see it as a problem; it must all be someone else's fault. A bit more of an honest comment here.

Legal firms have been quick off the mark offering advice to companies so they don't come a cropper as The Consulting Association and its client did. I even got some spam at the weekend offering the services of a particular solictor if I needed any legal comment for an article I might be writing.

The FT reports the story here and says at the end that it ws unable to contact the Consulting Association. Funny that, it having gone out of business and all.

The Times took the story on somewhat on Saturday having got hold of more detail on the payments firms made to The Consulting Association.

And in the blogosphere Malcolm Redfellow is just not that surprised by it all

At yesterday's Scottish Labour Conference procedural difficulties meant it wasn't possible to put a motion forward on blacklisting but Ucatt general secretary Alan Ritchie did address delegates.

Tonight MP Michael Clapham is preparing an Early Day Motion on the issue which should be put down tomorrow.

I'm off to write a 500-word piece for Tribune now.

chip wrapping

Meanwhile on with other stories as Friday's splash becomes Saturday's fish and chip paper. Have interviewed this man about piracy in the Gulf of Aden and need to turn that into 1,600 words.

And this seems like a great story on fake safety gear and I'd like to pursue it; if I can get a commission . . .

Downfall moves

I've moved my Downfall mash-up to here.

The last round-up on blacklisting (for now)

(New readers start here: Last year I wrote a story for The Guardian on blacklisting. Following this the Information Commissioner launched an investigation. This week that resulted in a vetting agency being shut down and dozens of construction companies named as clients. And Rob Evans and I at The Guardian got the scoop which was widely picked up. This is a collection of links to those follow ups. See here and here for my two other updates.)

Update 14.33pm: The Daily Kos has a very thoughtful piece.

Update 13.06pm: Apparently a motion is going before the Scottish Labour Conference asking the government to make blacklisting illegal.

*******

What's been missing from the news reports so far have been responses from the industry and the Conservative Pary.

So thank you the Daily Mail whose report (almost) managed both. Tory MP David Davis, who resigned over civil liberty issues etc etc, gave a very interesting quote.

"My own grandfather was blacklisted for his political and trade union activities, and could not work as a result. This can have a devastating effect, punishing whole families for people exercising their democratic rights."

Davis, who grew up on a council estate while his colleagues on the front bench owned estates, can empathise but that that seems a step too far for his party which has maintained its silence.
Does that have anything to do with fact that construction companies have traditionally been key funders?.

Or perhaps because they agree with economist Ruth Lea also quoted by the Mail (I'm glad someone's going to these people to see what they think) but know its repugnant to a large section of the electorate.

Lea, who was always on TV representing the Institute of Directors, is now always on TV representing the Arbuthnot Banking Group. So much on TV that if I was her manager I'd give her some proper work to do.

Lea said: "Checking employment records is exactly what companies should be doing. The idea that they should not be able to find out about prospective employees strikes me as bizarre."

And the Confederation of British Industry (again courtesy of the Daily Mail) declined to condemn the company, and other commentators said it was legitimate for employers to want to check out people they were hiring.

Declined to condemn a company which broke the law. Is it even beyond them to even ask companies to follow the law?

Construction News has a round-up of how the companies named by the Commissioner have responded. I could have saved them time by sending them the results of two days of doing just that for the Guardian since they've not decided to say anything new. I thought N G Bailey gave a hostage to fortune by announcing an investigation when most others just tried to shut the conversation down (as I would have). Look forward to finding out what Bailey's investigation reveals.

And more on the views from the other side, Man Of The Woods blog says the case is clearly evidence of...left wing hypocrisy. I was about to explain why but it's so silly just go and read it yourself. Dave Osler goes at the issue from a similar angle but gets his points across rather better, I feel.

Credit to MOTW though for at least considering the topic. Iain Dale and fellow Tory bloggers, so keen usually to stand up for freedom and who profess to bow to no-one, remain silent on the issue. Still, Paul Staines has got some more jokes about Gordon Brown having one eye so that's all right then.

Newsnight's report last night mentioned the Economic League, former emloyers of Ian Kerr, an angle barely covered elsewhere. It had some great archive footage of the Friedman's stormtroopers giving evidence to a parliamentary select committee. Waiting for the footage to go up on the site. I wonder where Kerr's colleagues in the league ended up? Did others, like him, continue the great fight?
 
Missed this in my previous round-ups from Guardian's Comment Is Free where they nominated Kerr as civil liberties villain of the week.

Wikipedia entry on The Consulting Association.

Here are letters to the Guardian on the story. Jon Rogers from Unison writes:

Presumably the construction companies who deny any wrongdoing in your report of the illegal activities of a former employee of the discredited Economic League will be investigating collusion in illegal activities by the managers and human resources officers.

And I think this angle on where were the HR managers is interesting since they must have known. I wonder what their professional associations and trade press think about the issue? It suggests a failure of professionalism in that sector, I would suggest.

The Information Commissioner will be launching a hotline for people to ring in and check if they were on the blacklist, reports Ucatt. The ICO has details on the helpline here.

The TUC issued a statement saying blacklisting is 'deplorable'. General Secretary Brendan Barber said:

“The Government must act now and bring in the 1999 blacklisting regulations, to give workers proper protection and access to redress.”

The Experiment blog covers the story.

And so does Organized Rage.

Here is a comment from Cheryl's Mewsings over in the US. Also in America, the University of Washington's Computer Security Research and Course blog picks up on the story.

Alan Ritchie, general secretary at Ucatt has been a fixture in the television and radio studios commentating on the story, which has been very helpful in his forthcoming election.

Unite has issued a statement.

I've got some more material from The Consulting Association such as blacklisted Steve Acheson's file and am working out how to best this (large pdf) file up.

And the blacklisting story goes on

Waiting for Newsnight having spoken to some of their reporters today but in the meantime...

update 3:

Henry Porter weighs in. Not my favourite writer but in his piece he does remember, which many general news stories overlook, that this is ultimately a human story about people unable to earn a living. I am sure Michael White's comment had Henry frothing at the mouth.

In this piece from the BBC the Lib Dems are quoted:

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said: "Leading companies have to realise that information is power, and wrong information is the abuse of power.

"The Information Commissioner is absolutely right to throw the book at the miscreants in this case."

I've yet to see any statement from the Conservatives on the issue du jour nor any of their bloggers taking it on. Perhaps they should take a look at Lenin's Tomb which adopts a very pragmatic and market-centric approach to the issue?

update 2:

Very good comment piece from industrial relations academic Gregor Gall about the victimisation of union activists.

Alex Hilton on Labourhome thinks companies linked with blacklisting should be barred from public sector contracts.

I understand the Information Commissioner is going to set up a freephone number from March 16 so that people who believe they were on the list can ring in with their name and NI number and find out. I imagine construction companies are already getting their legal teams to work our their defence from the inevitable compensation claims.

Blacklisting story goes everywhere

So woke up this morning to hear the blacklisting story which leads today's Guardian dominating the news agenda.
Here and here and here and here
The Information Commissioner has spent some six months investigating blacklisting in the construction industry following an article I wrote for the Guardian last year.
The result is detailed in the IC's press release issued today and in the story Rob Evans and myself wrote.
Just starting to listen to the Radio5Live phone in on 'what should your boss know about out' and about two minutes in already depressed by some people's attitudes.
Still, it's all part of working on follow-ups.
One of which is why the government decided not to make blacklisting illegal in the first place - and if they will now.

updates 1:

Bob Piper comments here and alerts me to the link on the Today programme. I've spoken to Steve Acheson, the blacklisted electrician interviewed here, several times for the articles. He won an employment tribunal a couple of years back which found that he had been blacklisted and trade journals and some left wing online forums  and magazines covered this. As with most stories; it's just sitting there waiting for people to take an interest. The Guardian and the Information Commissioner did. Meanwhile Steve's barely worked in the last nine years.

The Independent carries reaction from John McDonnell MP and Lord Mandelson (before he was pied). McDonnell says: "It is widely suspected that the Government caved in under pressure from employers' organisations when I raised this issue last time in Parliament [to outlaw blacklisting]."

Following a freedom of information request I was given documents on why the government's u-turn took place and they don't show any pressure beyond standard responses to a consultation. But perhaps more digging can be done on what led to this decision.

A Very Public Sociologist reports here.

Stronger Unions takes up my point on legislation

Exposing the blacklist

Just saw on Sky News the front pages from tomorrow's papers and there was the story I worked on with Rob Evans on the front of The Guardian. It's a follow up from this piece.
Well excited.

update 23.44: Just watched the newspaper review on Sky News and they discussed the story at length. Ahead, even, of Michael Jackson.

Scribbling

The lack of posts can be explained by a serious excess of work.
So take a bow E&T magazine where I've been looking at gecko feet, as well as Flipside where inaminate objects have taken interest and something for The Guardian this Friday which should prove interesting.

Giving and taking away

The Guardian published a piece by me this week on how one an Irish Traveller will be getting an MBE one week - and a battle at the High Court the next.

Bridgette Jones will be at Buckingham Palace next month to collect an MBE for service to her community.

A week later she will be at the high court hoping that her home outside Canterbury will not be taken from her.

"They give you a medal with one hand and they try and take your home away with the other," she says.

Jones, known to everyone as Bridie, has championed Traveller rights for the last 15 years. During that time she says that overt racism against Gypsies and Travellers may have diminished in the UK but discrimination still exists - nowhere more so than in planning regulations. Since 2001 she has been fighting to stay on the plot of land that she, her son, daughter and seven grandchildren call home.

"It has been seven long and depressing years," she says. "We have been given planning permission by the county council and by two inspectors but some villagers have set up a group to stop us and they keep appealing. It is very aggravating. You have children born and bred on that land."

Through her work with the Canterbury Gypsy Traveller Support Group, Jones gets a lot of calls from Travellers about similar planning problems.

"In some cases it is just ethnic cleansing," she claims. "In Basildon the council is spending £3m on bailiffs to evict Travellers from a site. There are 300 children on that site and some are sick and some are dying. We're supposed to be in a credit crunch and yet they spend all this money to put people off their own land."

Jones began volunteering back in 1992, working with young people in Kent. She found then that ethnic minority children didn't access traditional youth services so she tried to open up the services to the whole community.

"I've always tried to break down barriers and build bridges," she says. "When I get a phone call now I try to make sure they get the right services and go to the right people. It's about bringing people around a table and discussing problems."

When Jones got the letter in the post back in October with the royal motif on it, asking if she would accept an MBE she thought it was a joke. A follow-up letter inviting her to the palace in March was met by "complete out-and-out shock".

Jones has been to Downing Street to petition for Traveller rights on several occasions, but she just plans on enjoying this trip. She is saving her energy for the high court battle.

"People get very angry when they see what is happening in Italy with [Roma]Gypsies," she says , "but I don't think people know that it [discrimination] is on their own doorstep."

ENDS