Taking Out The Trash

A spy reports...

Below is an extract from evidence presented at the employment tribunal of blacklisted engineer Dave Smith. It is part of the files from the Consulting Association (CA) which kept details on thousands of workers which were used by the construction industry.

The CA files released so far have generally consisted of reports from companies of individual employment histories along with personal comments and newspaper clippings. This is unusual in being an original report from what appears to be someone who deliberately infiltrated a union meeting.

Construction firms admit blacklisting

A judgement is expected this Friday in an employment tribunal where construction firms have admitted supplying information to a blacklist file to penalise a worker because of his trade union activities.

At the Central London Employment Tribunal, Dave Smith (pictured with some of his 36-page blacklisting file [picture courtesy of Mick Holder]) and the respondent companies, Carillion, Carillion (JM) Limited (previously John Mowlem Limited), and Schal International Limited (a wholly owned subsidiary of Carillion) agreed a joint statement of facts.

The companies admitted that:

• They blacklisted Smith
• Their managers supplied information to the Consulting Association blacklist about Smith
• The reason was because of Smith's trade union activities
• An additional reason was because Smith raised concerns about health & safety on building sites
• The blacklisting caused Smith a "detriment"

In return for this statement from the companies, Smith agreed that he was not a direct employee of any of the respondent companies but worked via employment agencies (and because only "employees" are protected under current UK law, he should not be able to win his Tribunal)

Carillion then applied for the case to be struck out as having no reasonable chance of success but the tribunal refused the application and the case now continues until Friday.

There is now the possibility that the case could set a major legal precedent if relevant employment laws are found to cover agency workers not just direct employees of a guilty company.

The blacklist came to light when the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) raided the Consulting Association in March 2009. The secretive company, a direct descendent of the Economic League, had spent years compiling blacklists on thousands of workers on behalf of dozens of construction firms.

The sales book and invoices disclosed by the ICO to the tribunal show that between 1999 and 2004 Carillion paid £32,145 plus VAT to the Consulting Association, while Mowlem paid a total of £20,444 plus VAT.

Senior managers from both companies attended regional meetings as part of the blacklisting operation. Invoices indicate that managers from Carillion were attending Consulting Association meetings only months before the organisation was closed down.

The tribunal continues.

 

Mature approach needed to transgender issues

The Journalist has just published an article by me looking at the media coverage of transgender issues (turn to page 12).

I got some nice feedback from the people at Trans Media Watch. It's interesting that they see the best focus for their work as television. Print they see as to inflexible, too wedded to old habits. Getting better television coverage will drag print in its wake.

It does seem that transgender issues are getting better coverage on television while papers just rely on the point-and-laugh format. It is also clear that people are getting a lot better at holding the media to account over poor reporting and offering up new ideas and angles for stories. It's just that because the PCC is so bad at protecting group rights there is no incentive for the worst offenders in print to get things right.

Councils keep lists of 'undesirables'

It's taken me a little while to post this up; but a story I did with my colleague Richard Cookson on the databases local authorities hold on people who complain or pose a threat to staff made the Daily Mail.

So-called cautionary contact databases are used to keep tabs on people councils feel pose a threat to staff. However their scope, the number of people who can access them and the type of information held has been questioned.

The Daily Mail story starts:

Thousands of people involved in disagreements with council staff have had their personal details stored on secret blacklists.

Bureaucrats have listed the details of members of the public who have been involved in rows with teachers or dustmen over seemingly trivial matters.

Scores of councils hold databases of ‘undesirables’ – individuals who could potentially pose a threat to their staff.

They hold the details of almost 9,000 people, but most have never been charged with or convicted of a crime.

Personal information such as car registration numbers, telephone numbers, household pets, nicknames and distinguishing features are listed on the databases.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2015332/Thousands-secret-council-blacklists-Personal-details-kept-residents-dare-complain.html#ixzz1gSWo4RZh

If you want to see the spreadsheet listing all the responses from local authorities we canvassed then click here.

Why did Christofer die?

After I published this piece about a Bath man who died in police custody and whose family waited two years for an inquest I was contacted by another couple also waiting for answers.

Carol Bagg's son Christofer Walker died in 2008. He'd taken an overdose of pills and rung the police. It then took an hour for the emergency services to find him and get him to hospital - despite the fact he lived just a few minutes away. The Bagg's grief was compounded by the fact that it took months for an inquest to be held.

I wrote the story below for Private Eye back at the beginning of the year, but it was never published. I couldn't find anyone else who was interested in the story either. The good thing was that, after making inquiries an inquest was miraculously scheduled. See reports on the outcome here and here. This week the BBC's Inside Out programme and news outlet covered the story - well done to them.

The Avon coroner debacle has now been resolved but Carol says the things which went wrong and led to her son dying still need fixing.

Carol and Alan Bagg whose son, Chris Walker, died in Weston-super-Mare in February 2008.

The 27-year-old rang the police at 1.27am to say that he had been drinking and had accidentally taken a number of pills. Walker, who had learning difficulties, lived by himself. The overdose was from pills prescribed to manage a heart problem.

Despite living just four minutes drive from a hospital he did not arrive there until 2.46am – more than an hour after his 999 call. A consultant cardiologist estimated that he needed to have had a stomach pump within an hour to stand any chance of survival.

As it was he suffered a cardiac arrest before he even got in the ambulance and was effectively dead by the time he got to hospital.

In the absence of any investigation by the coroner Mrs and Mrs Bagg have turned detective amassing a huge amount of information.

An internal police investigation has criticised the call handling while the Baggs have serious concerns about how Great Western Ambulance dealt with their son.

Carol Bagg said: “It was like peeling back an onion and just finding more and more rotten bits. It was a sequence of events that could have been avoided.”

Frustrated at not even being given a date for an inquest the Baggs wrote to the Lord Chancellor, Ken Clarke, asking for help. They received a reply two months later from an official apologising because “the Ministry of Justice has had a serious backlog of public correspondence”.

In that letter, dated December 23, 2010, the official said that the coroner’s office had yet to even review the case file. He promised that the OJC would be in touch with a “substantive reply” addressing their concerns.

Three weeks later the OJC, also apologising for the delay in replying, said: “I am unable to provide you with a substance response at this time.”

The Bagg’s MP, John Penrose, who is the Minister for Tourism and Heritage, said: “I’m extremely concerned that such a large backlog of cases has built up at the Coroners Court. Some of the families have been waiting a very long time, which clearly isn’t fair when they’re having to deal with the grief of losing someone they love.

“I’m going to write immediately to the Coroners Court pushing them to clear the backlog quickly, and urging they get moving on Ms Bagg’s particular case as fast as possible.”

Mrs Bagg said: “What is important to me is that what happened to Chris does not happen again.

“Somebody needs to be held to account so the system can be changed.”

 

 

Olympic blacklisting allegations

The Blacklist Support Group - set up to help those people affected by the construction industry blacklist - has released information on a case which it says shows the scandal is still occuring. In a statement the group says:

Enfield based electrician Frank Morris has been sacked from working on the prestigious Media Centre at the Olympics after blowing the whistle on the use of an illegal blacklist on the construction project.

 

Frank's dismissal by Daletech Services followed weeks of intimidation and threats of violence by members of senior management after Frank Morris had raised concerns about the dismissal of a co-worker. The co-worker was dismissed from the Olympics Media Centre being built by Skanska and Carillion after his name appeared on a blacklist of trade union members. Frank raised concerns about this illegal practice and was victimised, bullied, threatened with violence by senior management to the point that Frank had to call the police for his own protection before finally being dismissed.

 Supporters plan a protest calling for Morris's reinstatement at 7am on Tuesday March 1 at Pudding Mill Lane DLR Station.

 

As the support group point out, Skanska and Carillion were two of the major building contractors exposed for using an illegal blacklist of trade union members following a raid on the premsies of the Consulting Association by the government's Information Commissioners Office in 2009.

The Consulting Association collated a secret database of trade union members on behalf of 44 multi-national construction firms who funded, supplied information and directed the workings of the blacklist. The Consulting association database was declared illegal following the successful prosecution in 2009. Invoices siezed during the raid show that Skanska alone paid over £28,000 a year to use the blacklist. Skanska have conceded that 30 of their senior managers participated in the Consulting Association operation. There are currently Employment Tribunal cases against Skanska, Carrillion and Daletech because of the blacklisting scandal.

 

Frank Morris told the Blacklist Support Group: "When I started August 2010 at the Olympic I was overjoyed. I brought into the Olympic dream and proud that I could be part of building of it. I was also guaranteeing myself a reasonable weekly wage in the worst recession since the great depression which was a lifeline to me and my family.

 

"Late last year, a fellow electrician  was dismissed from site, this worker had an impeccable work record; 100% attendance and punctuality, he was earning a productivity bonus which meant he was achieving over and above his daily work target and he had an impeccable disciplinary record. I was in complete shock the project was in mid flow we were all looking at a minimum of at least 6 months work and the contractor we were working for seemed to have plenty of work in the pipeline for 2011.

 

"Later that same day, I was speaking to my electrical supervisor and asked what was the reason behind the dismissal. The reply was astonishing, he stated he was dismissed because his name has come up on a list that he was a union man and a known troublemaker. My electrical supervisor confirmed this again the following day. The other electrician had previously been a shop steward on another London construction project.

 

"I passed on this information to the sacked electrician and his trade union, so he could understand the real reason for his dismissal. During the subsequent appeal hearing, the name of the electrical supervisor in question and the conversation I had previously recalled was divulged. That was the end of my Olympic experience.

 

"I was immediately removed of site and transferred to Belmarsh Prision extension still working for Daletech Services  with Skanska this time were the main contractor.  I was forced to work in isolation (in contravention of the main contractors health and safety procedures), site management waged a campaign of intimidation and bullying against me. On 16th December 2010, I had to call the police and ask for protection as a senor electrical engineer threatened me with violence; he said was going to follow me off the site and assault me. I tried my best to resolve the issues using the company grievance procedure. For the next 6 weeks, I suffered daily examples of intimidation by site management. If I could of found another job at any time, I would of resigned: the fact was, I could not afford to leave.

 

"On 14th February 2011, the management told me to attend a disciplinary hearing and I was sacked. I had previously worked on numerous railway projects and was represented at the hearing by Steve Hedley (RMT union official).  I was not sacked because of poor workmanship or lateness but because I raised concerns about the use of an illegal blacklist.  My union is representing me in an Employment Tribunal claim. I am now unemployed."  

 

Hedley said: "In over 25 years representing workers, I have never seen such a blatant stitch up."

 

Death in custody

Private Eye ran a shorter version of my story below in the Christmas edition. I've got a follow-up on another case about a death involving the emergency services which the Avon Coroner has yet to hear and that is currently with the Eye.

It was December 23, 2008 at about 6pm and Mark Read, aged 39, was leaving his work’s Christmas party in Bath.

Less than three hours later he was dead.

Read was heading home to his partner and their seven-week-old daughter. At around 7pm he was picked up in Bath by police for being drunk and incapable and taken into custody there. A check at around 8.30pm found he had choked on his own vomit and he was taken to the local hospital. He was pronounced dead an hour later.

 
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) had completed its investigation by this July but that could not be released until an inquest had taken place.

The inquest was postponed at least once but was eventually was scheduled for October this year. However a catalogue of staffing problems at the Avon coroner’s office meant it was postponed once more. It is now set for May next year.

The problems at Avon stem from the suspension on full pay of chief coroner Paul Forrest in March 2009 while an investigation into alleged financial and mismanagement issues took place. Forrest, who headed the third largest coroner’s office in the country and was paid around £120,000 a year, was eventually sacked in July this year.

However in September he was reinstated and then immediately suspended on full pay because an error meant he wasn’t given a ten day grace period to challenge his dismissal.

The acting coroner and assistant deputy coroners had been trying to cope but, inevitably, cases have backed-up. According to its own figures, as of October, there were 151 outstanding inquests going as far back as 2005. (The backlog is now down to about 100 through clearing the less complex cases)

It is understood that one member of staff is now on long-term sick leave and another has left due to the situation.

In the meantime the Read family, including a teenage son from a previous relationship, remain in limbo and without any official explanation as to why Mark died.

In a statement issued through their solicitor, Read’s parents, June and Brian from Melksham in Wiltshire, told Private Eye: “The delay in listing the inquest due to the lack of an available coroner has caused a lot of additional distress and upset to my family.

“We are devastated by the loss of our son, who was an extremely hard working and loving person, totally devoted to his family and children.”

The family believe there were a number of failings by officers in Bath which lead to Read’s death. These include: failing to get help or advice from a police doctor once he was detained; not following the force’s own manual on dealing with intoxicated people; placing him on his back in the cell and not the recovery position and not recording his condition properly so other officers knew what to deal with.

The handling of intoxicated prisoners was highlighted in a report by the IPCC issued in December. It looked at 333 deaths in custody in the last ten years and found that drunken detainees were one of the most common groups to die.

It questioned whether police cells were the most appropriate place to detain them and raised concerns about whether officers were following guidelines on safe handling.

Read’s family said: “We believe if Mark had been properly cared for, and in particular if he had not been on his back or if medical assistance has been sought, he would not have died.

“We confirm that a civil action against Avon and Somerset Constabulary is being considered on behalf of Mark’s children.”

ENDS

 

The Obesity Epidemic

Tribune has printed my review of Zoe Harcombe's The Obesity Epidemic.

Diets have to be the least successful health campaigns in history. In the past 30 years bookshelves have become stuffed with how to guides, governments spend millions on task forces and the media are stuffed with warnings and advice. In that time the percentage of people in Britain classified as obese has risen ten fold.

But while as health promotion it’s been a disaster, as a money making exercise it’s been nothing short of brilliant. The food industry has found ever more ingenious ways to make as cheaply as possible nutritionally rubbish food which they sell as expensively as they can. Then they flog diet options to counter the effects and the media gorge themselves on an endless supply of health and diet stories.
Zoë Harcombe starts by wondering why it is that humans, whose bodies evolved to regulate themselves, should be experiencing a weight crisis. It is questionable whether we’re really not exercising enough when you consider how many people you know who run or play sport. It seems odd when the average daily calorie intake is lower than a generation ago.

In a series of rigorously sourced chapters she pulls apart many of the key tenets in the diet business. The science behind them is contradictory and often based on mantras about which we know little. A good example is the formula that 1lb fat contains 3,500 calories, so to lose 1lb a week you need a deficit of 500 calories a day. This is a diet shibboleth yet the Department of Health, one of its adherents, told Harcombe it didn’t know the rationale behind it and the British Dietetic Association refused to say if it had any evidence for it. Harcombe painstakingly dissects statements such as “people are fat because they eat too much and exercise too little”.

You can read the rest here.

Could bloggers kill off the Press Complaints Commission?

Mike Jempson, direct of the media watchdog MediaWise, has written this editorial in advance of tomorrow's discussion on blogging at the Watershed in Bristol (more details below).

The PCC has reluctantly agreed to reopen its file on the News of the World phone-tapping scandal, but never did fully investigate past evidence from the Information Commissioner’s Office that many other papers have obtained personal data by illicit means.
Meanwhile the PCC is chewing over the latest face-saving review of its governance procedures. But it will have to ask permission from its paymaster - the newspaper industry - if it is to adopt one key recommendation that it should have the power to reprimand editors in person and have journalists disciplined for serious breaches of the Editor’s Code.
Isn’t it all too little, too late, and too ludicrous? Do we really need a weak-kneed system that can take months to prise an apology or correction from erring editors, when most of us now have that power at their fingertips – fast, free and fairly easily?
The blogosphere has already proved itself a worthy platform from which to shame the press for prurience, inaccuracy and poor taste (which the PCC says is none of its business anyway).
The moment the Scottish Sunday Express’ disgraceful front page story ‘Anniversary Shame of Dunblane Survivors’ (left) hit the newsstands on 8 March 2009 there was uproar on the web. More than 11,000 people signed an online petition objecting to a story based on material lifted surreptitiously from young people’s Facebook pages. Within days the online version was down, and an apology printed on 22 March. It took another three months for the PCC to adjudicate and censure the newspaper.
An online campaign in November 2009 encouraged a record 25,000 complaints to the PCC about Jean Moir’s homophobic Daily Mail article about the death of Stephen Gately, and even targeted the Mail’s advertisers. This time the PCC made a laughing stock of itself by rejecting the complaints.
And in May this year, criticism on Twitter of Zoo magazine’s 'agony uncle' Danny Dyer (right) for advising a man to "cut his ex's face, so no one will want her", led to an almost instant apology and the dropping of Dyer’s column.
This is much tougher redress than the PCC has ever mustered.
The blogosphere has become a virtual mirror reflecting upon media content and challenging the veracity and motives of the producers. Andrew Marr may look down his nose at the ‘socially-inadequate’ bloggers out there, but an increasing number keep an eye on press misdemeanours and are getting support from journalists themselves.
So maybe we don’t need a statutory right of reply any more. Instead we all need to become exponents of a new type of media accountability.
That is one reason journalists and bloggers are getting together in Bristol this weekend - to discuss the potential of the blogosphere to change mainstream media behaviour. We shall be sharing ideas with colleagues across Europe and the Arab world who see the blogosphere as a territory from which to liberate themselves from censorship and injustice whether by repressive governments or unaccountable media companies.
Cyberspace may be the new battleground, but it also represents ultimate democratisation. No-one may have the time and energy to absorb or filter all its news and views, but citizens can now select, compare and contrast them, reject or respond to them, and even make their own. As more and more join the blogosphere, perhaps their ‘noise’ will drown out the power and influence of the mainstream media. And put an end to the PCC.

What’s the Blogging Story? starts at 7pm in Bristol’s Watershed on Friday 22 Oct, and continues at the Pervasive Media Centre on Sat 23 Oct.

The panel on Friday night features ROY GREENSLADE (The Guardian), DONNACHA DELONG (NUJ Vice President), SUNNY HUNDAL (Liberal Conspiracy), BROOKE MAGNANTI (Belle du Jour), ANTON VOWL (The Enemies of Reason) and SARAH DITUM (Paperhouse) and a representative from the Press Complaints Commission.

Wiltshire radical history lessons

Thanks to Eugene Byrne for passing this on. A free day of talks about the radical history of Wiltshire, from machine breakers to communist councillors

WILTSHIRE HISTORY DAY: Working-class episodes

Saturday November 6^th 2010 

St Margaret’s Hall, Bradford-on Avon, 10am – 2.30pm Admission free

 

Prof. Adrian Randall, Birmingham University:

“Thomas Helliker and the Wiltshire machine-breakers”

 

Nigel Costley, Secretary, South West Region Trades Union Congress:

“Captain Swing rioters”

 

Steve Poole, Principal History Lecturer, University of the West of England:

“Chartism in rural Wiltshire, 1838-1842”

 

Derique Montaut, Labour Party Leader, Swindon Borough Council:

“Strikes and Socialism in Swindon in the 1960’s and 1970’s”

 

Dave Chapple, CWU and Rosie McGregor, UNISON:

“Phyllis and Idris Rose: Trowbridge communist councillors”

 

ORGANISED BY WHITE HORSE (WILTSHIRE) TRADES UNION COUNCIL

For further details contact Andy Newman on andyd1961 AT yahoo.co.uk