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    Dave Smith: Blacklist Support Group Opening Statement for Undercover Policing Inquiry Archived Message

    Posted by sashimi on November 18, 2020, 9:21 pm

    17 November, 2020

    (quote)
    In 1919, ex-military intelligence officers together with Conservative
    MPs and the captains of British industry set up the Economic League,
    to wage in their own words 'a crusade for capitalism' by keeping left
    wing union activists under surveillance and denying them work. The
    Economic League had both direct formal and (countless) informal links
    with the police, that resulted in thousands of workers losing their
    jobs in sectors such as pharmaceuticals, mining, engineering, banking
    and local government.

    The Inquiry will find that after the Economic League closed down in
    1993, Cullum McAlpine, a director of Sir Robert McAlpine Limited
    bought part of the Economic League blacklist to set up a new
    organisation called The Consulting Association. This secret body was
    comprised of major construction companies including; Balfour Beatty,
    Laing O'Rourke, Costain, Skanska, Kier, Bam, Vinci, AMEC and AMEY. It
    illegally orchestrated the blacklisting of construction workers and
    appointed a former Economic League employee, Ian Kerr, as Chief
    Executive. Files were kept on 3213 individuals, which included their
    name, national insurance number, address, photograph, phone number,
    car registration, information about their medical history and family
    members.

    When a blacklisted worker was elected as a union representative,
    raised concerns about safety on a building site, submitted an
    employment tribunal or took part in a protest, this was recorded on
    his or her blacklist file. Every job applicant on major building
    projects, had their name checked against the blacklist and if there
    was a match, the worker would be refused work or dismissed. Each name
    check cost £2.20, the last set of invoices for Sir Robert McAlpine
    alone, when the company was building the Olympic Stadium was for
    £28,000. This is not a few managers chatting after work. This is
    industrial scale systematic blacklisting of union activists.

    ...

    In the 1990s I worked, and was a union safety rep, on the Jubilee Line
    Extension, and some of my fellow workers who took part in a safety
    dispute over the lack of fire alarms at London Bridge station ended up
    being blacklisted. Some of those blacklisted workers took their own
    lives. No one can say that blacklisting was the sole reason for these
    suicides, but prolonged periods of unemployment and family tensions
    cannot be good for anyone's mental health.

    Blacklisting is also responsible for workers' deaths in another
    way. When union safety reps are repeatedly sacked just for
    highlighting unsafe working conditions such as asbestos, electrical
    safety or poor scaffolding, that sends out a message to other workers
    on site. It creates a climate of fear where other workers keep their
    heads down rather than speak up. The conscious blacklisting of safety
    reps is undoubtedly a contributory factor in the appalling workplace
    fatality rates in construction, the sector with consistently the
    highest number of deaths of any major industry in the UK.

    Parliament was so outraged by the Consulting Association that as a
    direct consequence it introduced the Blacklisting Regulations 2010. A
    select committee investigation into Blacklisting in Employment
    published seven reports and called blacklisting a "real live
    conspiracy"In 2016, a High Court trial was settled when the UK's
    biggest building firms made a public apology and paid damages for
    their blacklisting activities.

    This Inquiry will find that is was not just the major employers who
    kept union activists under surveillance and contributed to our
    blacklisting - it was the political police at the heart of this public
    inquiry too. The police's own internal investigation, Operation Herne
    has concluded:

    * Para. 4.2 - Police, including Special Branches and the Security
    Services supplied information to the blacklist funded by the
    country's major construction firms, The Consulting Association and
    other agencies. Operation Herne finds this allegation is Proven

    * Para. 13.1.2 - Special Branches throughout the UK had direct contact
    with the Economic League, public authorities, private industry and
    trade unions.'
    (/quote)
    -- Cont'd at https://www.hazards.org/blacklistblog/2020/11/17/blacklist-support-group-opening-statement-for-ucpi-dave-smith/

    Message Thread:

    • Dave Smith: Blacklist Support Group Opening Statement for Undercover Policing Inquiry - sashimi November 18, 2020, 9:21 pm