BLACKLISTED: The Secret War between Big Business and Union Activists
DAVE SMITH and PHIL CHAMBERLAIN New Internationalist 2015
Reviewed by Sheila Cohen
It’s as if Blacklisted contains within its covers two books – or even three: the stern, investigative study of chicanery in master-blacklister Ian Kerr’s front room, the respectful, earnest tome touching its cap to those same ‘unions’ who ignored the workers for so long; and the joyful, raucous celebration, joining in with the mass of shouting, singing, laughing workers. This book reads like an unpredictable roller-coaster through the ups and downs of trade unionism, fully illustrating the contradictory dynamic between movement and institution found within this Great Movement of Ours.
Blacklisted brings us a valuable account of the massive difficulties experienced by activists attempting organisation within a notoriously corrupt, frequently fly-by-night sector. Perhaps the history is a tad overdone – I’m not sure we needed a whole chapter devoted to the tragic 1972 building workers’ strike – but the curse of the notorious ‘lump’ is dissected in painful detail, with the depressing and accurate conclusion that ‘the spread of bogus self-employment has been relentless, regardless of the wording of…nationally-negotiated… agreements between the employers’ federations and the unions’ (p66). Oh, those unions.
One of the first to pay tribute to the book is Gail Cartmail, Assistant General Secretary of UNITE, who announces ‘Our collective resistance will defeat blacklisting…’ Yet both building worker unions, UCATT and UNITE, were slow to grasp the nettle wielded so painfully against activists. Cartmail herself is quoted as having rather observed rather grudgingly that ‘union collusion may have taken place in the past’, though ‘it shouldn’t have happened.’ As the authors observe, ‘this may not have satisfied every blacklisted worker’ but the official’s public apology and the ‘wholehearted support’ she gave to Crossrail activist Frank Morris (pp242-3) is said to have earned some respect for the beleaguered bureaucrat.
The authors themselves use the Introduction to criticise the trade unions, however apologetically. Despite ‘diligent research and campaigning by trade unions…corporations have compromised the ideals of some…’ (p18). Enough said, at least at this point. The detailed history reveals much ‘compromising’; in their detailed account of the doings of The Consulting Association (TCA – aka blacklisting exercise) the authors note ‘The spying operation may have been set up by building firms but…some trade unions are implicated too.’ This can hardly be a surprise to anyone aware of the half-baked ‘business unionism’ associated with unions like UCATT (see below for details).
‘Only an ordinary bear…’?
With its description of the mechanics of blacklisting, the book offers poignant accounts by activists of the horrific effects on their lives. Leading steward Graham Bowker described the impact on his marriage: ‘It’s…like: “When money stops coming through the door, love goes out the window”. Well, that’s a true fact…’ His was not the only marriage to suffer from the strain. For electrician Jake McCloud ‘it was the end of my marriage…I was only an ordinary bear but…I fully appreciated that my missus couldn’t take any more’ (pp26-7).
These ‘bears’ were, of course, very far from ‘ordinary’. As committed activists, they – like their counterparts across the workforce – make up the lifeblood of the trade union movement. Unlike the TUC and ‘many trade unions’ who ‘put the issue on the backburner’, citing ‘lack of evidence’ (p8) the Bowkers, McClouds and Smiths were living that ‘evidence’ day after day. Indeed, in what might be called a backhanded compliment, the ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office) files ‘suggested that being a union activist was the overwhelming criterion for inclusion’ (p35).
By March 2009, after the ICO raid on the TCA offices, more details of the files could be revealed, showing the common use of phrases such as ‘will cause trouble, strong TU’, and ‘ex-shop steward, definite problems’. Although it was claimed that the objective was to identify individuals who could harm the company for any reason, such as dishonesty or poor workmanship, ‘the files suggested that being a union activist was the overwhelming criterion for inclusion’ (p35).
The TCA itself was as assiduous as the ‘left’ should be in its focus on activists – a layer within the movement which can be seen as key in its commitment to genuine worker representation and awareness of the bigger picture. As the authors put it, ‘being a union activist was the overwhelming criterion for inclusion [on the blacklist]’. Amongst those activists, ‘those who raised genuine safety concerns may have been prejudiced’, ie included on the blacklist, according to a mysterious figure known as the Deputy Information Commissioner (p35). Given that safety is a central issue within the construction industry more than most, raising such concerns would have been a key activity for committed worker representatives.
Despite the eventual exposure of the TCA’s unsavoury activities, the ‘sanctions’ eventually imposed by the ICO were essentially toothless; an employment law professor commissioned by UCATT reported that ‘the list does not contain some of the heaviest users [of the blacklist]…this does not seem an adequate response.’ Even more to the point, the activists named felt ‘frustrated that, after the initial media splash, the story had vanished from public view’ (p41).
The next chapter, ‘Conduct which kills freedom’, concerns itself mainly with the 1972 building workers’ strike. The defeat of this protracted dispute was a catastrophe for the future of employment regulation in the industry, ensuring the survival of the dreaded ‘lump’ – cash payment in hand rather than legitimate wages based on a secure employment contract. We are informed that ‘The trade unions in the building industry have campaigned on this issue for the last 40 years’ (p64). Yet the only change over the years seems to be one of terminology: what are referred to as ‘umbrella’ payroll companies now ‘set up all new starters as directors of their own individual limited company’ (p65). So much for ‘campaigning trade unions’.
As the relatively reformist 1970s turned into the neo-liberal 1980s and beyond, we arrive at a ‘flexible market’ in construction in which ‘profits appear to be put before people every day of the week’ (p70). Yet the next section shows that none of this is inevitable. Vic Heath, elected as AUEW convenor for the Barbican site, recalls how ‘the activists first built the union by organizing a meeting about the lack of toilets and welfare facilities’; when the contractor refused to supply them, ‘the men all walked a quarter mile to the nearest public facilities…After three days of lines of workers tramping along the main road…and back, the firm capitulated’ (p71).
This victory also allowed for ‘newly established union representatives’ who linked up with another site on the same project and formed a joint shop stewards’ committee, making that ‘the Barbican…one of the best-organised sites in the industry’. Even more importantly, the Barbican stewards linked up with activists from other sites to form the rank-and-file Joint Sites Committee, which ‘brought together activists from different unions and different trades’ (p72) and played a central part in later anti-blacklisting struggles. Activists don’t care which union you’re in.
And yet, and yet…Those activists make a lot of sacrifices. Dave Smith, Blacklisting’s primary author, lost his job time after time whenever he was elected UCATT safety rep. Other activists faced more direct assaults; steward and safety rep George Fuller and fellow activist John Kean were ‘violently attacked by strangers’, after which they both ‘found themselves blacklisted’ (p81).
Nor was the persecution confined to conventional building sites. In the late 1980s, after the oil rig Piper Alpha ‘accident’ had murdered 167 workers (a safety valve had been ‘deliberately removed’ from the rig) workers occupied both oil and gas rigs, forming the cross-industry Offshore Industry Liaison Committee (OILC).
Yet little of this class-based feistiness is found in the top echelons of ‘the unions’. To quote Pat Corby, former head of the EETPU construction sector and now chair of the JIB: ‘I believe in social partnership…I want to work with employers and make things better…’ (p101).
By contrast, the Joint Sites Committee shows little respect for employers, perhaps because none has been shown to them. As the authors put it, ‘improv[ing] conditions on building sites…[means] an ongoing guerrilla war. ‘ While the JSC had originally been set up in the 1960s (see p71) it was ‘resurrected’ in the early 1990s by two Scottish building workers, Chris Clarke and Mick Dooley, ‘attracting a new generation of union activists’ (p101). In 1992, the JSC organised Vascroft workers building a hotel; the site became ‘a famous industrial-relations battleground’ as workers fought low pay and inadequate facilities. After a torrid saga of sackings, reinstatements and yet more sackings, ‘Mick Dooley arrived on site …and occupied the tower crane…for ten days the occupied tower crane and the JSC picket brought the site to a standstill.’ Dooley and Clarke were included on the blacklist for their pains.
Low-Intensity War…
In the late ‘90s, things were looking up, with ‘an unprecedented building boom’ lasting until the 2008 slump. Steve Kelly was the first shop steward to be elected on the Jubilee Line Extension (JLE), alongside Jim Turner, who recalled, ‘[T]here was a massive sense of empowerment…straight away there were issues and we were winning…We had seized control and they had no redress’ (pp108-9). Turner’s statement captures the underlying mechanics of workplace union organisation and consciousness.
During this period ‘the Jubilee Line electricians played a leading role in building a national rank-and-file network’ with ‘contacts on major projects across the country’, and one-day strikes and demonstrations ‘involving over 10,000 workers in total’. The event was described as ‘a total day of action that the AEEU had never seen before. This was just solidarity, stewards talking to each other, sticking together…’ (p111).
After Labour won its decisive majority in 1997, UCATT executive member Tony Farrell told conference delegates: ‘One of the greatest things…[is] they are going to outlaw the blacklisting of trade unionists…’ But he spoke too soon; while draft regulations were drawn up in 1999, they were never implemented. The government eventually claimed that ‘There has been no blacklisting – covert or overt – since the 1980s.’ Although the TUC and other unions supported immediate regulation, it seems ‘UCATT, the Transport and General and the GMB all supported the government’s position’, while Amicus made no submission (pp121-2). By 2005 the Labour government had decided that ‘evidence of blacklisting was only anecdotal’.
FROM HERE Finally, in 2010, the government banned the use of blacklists, but ‘fail[ed] to make blacklisting a criminal offence’, thus ‘doing nothing to eradicate, and even less to compensate the victims’ of blacklisting (p124). The case of Howard Nolan bears this out; refused work on two separate Balfour Beattie sites in 2001 and 2006, Nolan’s case was rejected because the claimant had ‘sat on his hands for too long’, while ex-shop steward Phil McNeilis lost because he had ‘slept on his rights’ (p127). Further claims were being rejected on identical grounds as late as 2012.
But worse than this was the clause that only direct employees could put in any kind of legal claim. Since the whole structure of the building industry is based on casualisation, this puts a massive Catch-22 in the way of the very workers who most need legal redress.
Luckily for activist Mick Dooley, his unfair dismissal claim succeeded in reaching a full hearing at the Central London Employment Tribunal in January 2010. However, ‘with commendable chutzpah’, Balfour Beatty simply argued that the information on his file justified Dooley’s dismissal. Since only employees are covered by unfair dismissal legislation, Dooley was left without redress (p129).
Worse, ‘[d]uring 2010, there was a notable change of attitude by the unions…’ after union solicitors Thompsons began receiving letters from companies threatening claimants with costs. The firm began telling clients that ‘the union was no longer prepared to represent them’, and as a result ‘to date only three claimants have [won] Employment Tribunal[s]’ (p132).
Among those three was Steve Acheson. Interestingly, the industrial relations manager at blacklisting employment agency Beaver Management Services Ltd (BMS), was an ex-Amicus official, one Jim Simms. After Unite intervened on Acheson’s behalf, Simms offered him a job; and yet, and yet…Acheson ‘worked for [only] 16 weeks before he was made redundant’ (p136). His TCA file read in part ‘Acheson is understood to have gathered support from fellow workers for strike action…[it may be] that BMS has knowingly taken Acheson onto their books…this may be a manoeuvre to contain…the EPIU activist element of Unite…’ It might indeed.
Another activist badly served by his union is Blacklisted co-author Dave Smith, the subject of a 36-page file at the TCA. Though Smith swiftly supplied a copy to UCATT, ‘his former union declined to provide any legal representation for his claim’ (p138). Oh, those unions.
Shortly afterwards, Smith and a left-wing solicitor, David Renton, devised a new strategy; they would submit Smith’s claim as a test case in the European Court of Human Rights. An Employment Tribunal granted the Information Commissioners Office the right to examine Smith’s TCA files; the ICO passed on the file to Smith himself, and the activist discovered not only which companies had registered information about him, but also ‘to identify dozens of [other] activists…’
Carillon was forced to admit that they had blacklisted Smith for his trade union activities, yet he still lost his case; the activist had never been a direct employee of any of the companies concerned, and UK employment law only protects employees. Yet the judge’s conclusion that ‘he has suffered a genuine injustice’ was enough to cause jubilation: ‘[s]upporters packed into the…pub…to celebrate’ (p141).
And yet, and yet…Less than a year ago, the UK government admitted that blacklisting was a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights and that the only reason Smith – once again – would lose his case was his employment status. But that same government ‘has now intervened in the case in order to fight against Smith…’ This review is being written on the day of the 2015 election; it will be interesting to see whether a Labour-dominated coalition will take a more, um, labour-supportive approach. In fact we learn that ‘the case is still ongoing’ (p143).
While ‘[t]he blacklisting files provide documentary evidence of…systematic breaches of the European Convention of Human Rights’ it turns out that ‘the Human Rights Act…is only applicable to public bodies’ (p144). In fact two blacklisting cases have been lodged with the ECHR, but as Terry Brough, one of the activists concerned, argues: ‘[B]lacklisting will never be resolved by legislation…There’s only one way to beat the blacklist and that’s…strong trade union organisation.’ In this, Brough displays a wisdom beyond that of this Oxford-educated legal helpmates.
Brough’s conclusions are borne out by a very different case described in this chapter; in 2012, low-paid hospital ancillary workers in a Swindon hospital who had suffered systematic racist bullying by corrupt supervisors took 21 days of strike action ; when they complained, they were disciplined and their GMB union reps targeted. All the GMB strikers were employed by construction company Carillion, shown to have blacklisted building workers during the construction of the hospital. In 2013, the GMB began a High Court claim against Carillion; GMB member Dirk McPherson had been blacklisted after complaining about lack of safety equipment at the Pfizer site, and that November ‘blacklisted workers finally made it to the Royal Courts of Justice’ (p150).
Ironically – if that’s the word – ‘Unite and UCATT [had] both announced their intention of joining the claim the week before…’ (p150). Well, better late than never. Maybe. In fact, as the subsequent chapter shows, ‘senior union officials’ including former UCATT general secretary Alan Ritchie, had ‘agreed that certain aspects of the scandal were not going to be covered. One was any involvement by trade unions. Union officials were called but the question of collusion barely raised…’ (pp166-7).
In fact Glasgow MP Ian Davidson, who had consistently supported the investigation, insisted – rightly – that its focus should be ‘on working-class people…the whole middle-class constituency would love to think they had been blacklisted…and they would get in the television studios and be far more articulate…and therefore…attention would be diverted’ (p167).
The Select Committee report, issued on March 14 2014, came out clearly in support of direct employment. Yet ‘[T]he government rejected [its] main proposals, citing…the need for “flexible employment structures”.’ In response, the GMB issued a 26-page report on blacklisting to every Labour councillor in the country, and Knowsley, Hull and Tower Hamlets became ‘the first council[s] to agree not to deal with blacklisters.’
When UNITE leader Len McCluskey visited Southampton to highlight the case of blacklisted rigger John Wheeler, councillors agreed not to deal with blacklisting companies in the city. In February 2013 MSP Neil Findlay organised a summit on blacklisting which resulted in the Scottish government informing public sector bodies that it could end contracts if firms were found to be blacklisting, and in autumn 2014 Islington ‘became the first local authority to throw a blacklisting…firm off a public contract.’
Yet ‘the more direct-action approach adopted by the Blacklist Support Group…had a mixed response from union leaders…’ (p172), for whom the strategy was to ‘establish a new relationship with the companies’ and look to Labour. For UCATT general secretary Steve Murphy: ‘If we politically get Labour into power we can then say…you won’t get the job unless compensation is paid to blacklisted workers’ (173).
Yet this more ‘political’ approach had little effect on the behaviour of the blacklisters themselves, and the writers are forced to conclude that ‘if [blacklisting] was ever to be defeated, it needed to be fought industrially on building sites’ (179).
In 2007, when London ‘won’ the Olympics, government, unions, employers and the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) signed a Memorandum of Agreement which called for an ‘ethos’ of direct employment (p180). And yet, and yet…Almost immediately Paul Corby, now ‘industrial relations consultant’ for the ODA sent the Director of Construction, Howard Shiplee, email which castigated blacklisted electrician Steve Kelly and described the suggestion that the GMB should be signatories to the agreement described above as ‘idiotic’ (p181).
Not only Kelly but two other ex-stewards from the Jubilee Line, Dave Auvache and Jim Grey, found themselves blacklisted after only a few weeks. As Grey recalled, ‘[T]here was a shop steward in place…[but] it turned out he was appointed by management…’ Grey was elected as steward, but immediately afterwards Auvache was sacked because ‘his name [had] come up on a list…’
FROM HERE In response, ‘the Blacklisting Support Group immediately mobilised 60 trade unionists to an early morning protest outside the Olympic site’ (p184). Nor was this merely a token action: ‘The protests continued for a number of weeks, blockading the main goods entrance to the project when protestors repeatedly crossed a zebra crossing while carrying their banners’ (p185). In early 2011 supporters of the blacklisted three were ‘assaulted by armed plainclothes security guards’ when they attempted to hand out leaflets to IOC members, and later the ODA locked its doors and refused entry to Morris and his representative, Steve Headley of the RMT. As Jim Grey commented later, ‘All the jigsaw pieces fitted into place…They always denied that there was a blacklist on the job…but obviously there was all the way along’ (p188).
There was no way the activists were going to give up, and in fact their organising saw spectacular success; a meeting at Conway Hall arranged via text messages ‘by a handful of union activists’ saw 500 workers ‘crammed’ into the building. As the authors emphasise, ‘This was the start of the biggest industrial battle seen in the UK building industry for decades’ – in any industry, for that matter.
While the basic issue was blacklisting, the meeting focussed on the ‘rumour’ that eight of the largest contractors had decided to withdraw from the JIB agreement; the eight had decided to leave the existing industry ‘partnership’ agreement and unilaterally set up a new set of terms and conditions to be known as BESNA (Building Services National Agreement). The agreement would allow unqualified workers to carry out the work currently done by skilled electricians, with the pay rate reduced from £16.25 an hour to as low as £10 – a 35% pay cut.
Among the obvious objections to this proposal, one issue stood out; safety. In the words of Stuart Hume, a Grangemouth electrician ‘who had never been involved in any union activity before’ – ‘This…is putting electricians out of work…but it’s also [a] health and safety issue, with these people not qualified to carry out electrical work’ (p190).
The meeting elected a national rank-and-file committee made up of Steve Kelly, UNITE activist Kevin Williamson, Steve Acheson and Labour councillor Jim Harte among others. But in a gesture of broader working-class solidarity, it also co-opted ex-Rolls Royce convenor Jerry Hicks, who had himself been ‘blacklisted’ for his impressive record of workplace trade union activism. As Kevin Holmes, a ‘twenty-something electrician from Blackburn’, recalled: ‘[T]hat first…rank-and-file BESNA meeting. Electrifying…I can’t describe the buzz in the room, to be part of something so massive…’ (p190).
‘Wildcat Walkouts…’
The committee immediately started organising early-morning protests, firstly at a Balfour Beatty site at Blackfriars, then as far afield as Glasgow, Manchester and Lindsey Oil Refinery (the scene of strikes by construction engineering workers in 2009). While the ‘sparks’ at first organised protests at Stratford involving leafleting of Olympics workers, before long ‘[r]outine protests escalated into occupations of building sites…and wildcat walkouts on major blue-book sites.’ Just as significantly, ‘[r]ather than a top-down…leadership structure…regional rank-and-file committees [were] elected in London, Scotland, Wales, the Northwest and the Northeast’ while ‘younger electricians new to union activism…were encouraged to take on leading roles’ (p191).
There was mutual support between the activists and directly-organising young protestors such as the Occupy activists, with the ‘sparks’ marching to St Paul’s ‘in solidarity with the anti-capitalist protestors’. As electrician Paul McKeown put it, ‘There was a lot of excitement in the air that things will turn in favour of the masses instead of the bosses…That spurred people on’ (p192).
Following a day of action on 9th November 2011, UNITE balloted its members at Balfour Beatty for official strike action, receiving a vote of 81% in favour. Although the company obtained an injunction against the action, the rank and file ‘simply ignored’ this and organised nationally coordinated mass walkouts in Newcastle, Glasgow, and Manchester among other cities, extending the action to oil refineries and power stations such as Grangemouth and Ratcliffe. Workers on Balfour Beatty sites in Aberdeen and Glasgow walked out after young electricians held ‘impromptu meetings in the canteen’ (p194).
In one of the best actions of all, over 300 electricians blockaded posh Park Lane outside the Grosvenor Hotel where an Electrical Contractors’ Association dinner was being held; ‘the great and good of the industry, in…black ties and dinner jackets, were forced to…run the gauntlet of…sparks jigging to The Irish Rover’. It is unclear whether this was linked to the High Court’s rejection, the very next day, of the Balfour Beatty injunction request, and the company withdrew from BESNA.
In any case, ‘BESNA was dead.’ This is attributed to ‘the combination of rank-and-file militancy and official union action…’ yet it remains unclear whether the second of these factors was anywhere near as effective as the first (see below). As the authors acknowledge, when electrical firms continued to victimise activists like Jason Poulter, Gail Cartmail of Unite raised the case in her Select Committee evidence ‘but again it was the rank and file that resolved the issue.’
As car-worker activist and socialist Rob Williams put it, ‘The guys working with Jay [Poulter] and Kevin [Holmes]…decided not to go to work…we were outside the plant and the cars were going in…We were in constant contact with those inside…and [heard] there were meetings taking place…and…different groups of workers had agreed that they were going to come out…[what] I will never forget was the different demeanour: guys were going into work with their heads down…but when they came out…[t]her drove out in long lines of cars beeping their horns, absolutely ecstatic. What a day!’
The old phrase ‘festival of the depressed’ comes to mind. Unsurprisingly, Jason Poulter was reinstated the next morning.
Yet another activist, Stewart Hume, was /redeemed/ by a similar /outbreak/. Made redundant after an ‘interview’ with Balfour Beattie management, his case was raised in Parliament. Yet ‘it was when the Grangemouth workers voted to walk out over it that he was miraculously reinstated’ (p197). The lessons are crystal clear.
It seems, however, that those lessons were wasted on management. In a very similar case, electrical supervisor Garry Gargett, working on Crossrail, noticed a section of 11,000-volt electrical cables covered by scaffolding and debris. He took a photograph of this dangerous set-up and was about to take it to his supervisor when ‘he was intercepted by a…manager, removed from site and dismissed’ (p200).
On the same project, veteran activist Frank Morris was effectively sacked when the EIS contract on which he was working was terminated ‘just 36 days after…Morris had submitted a formal grievance about the bonus.’ This effective sacking of a leading activist launched ‘the UK’s biggest-ever industrial dispute to get a blacklisted shop steward reinstated’ (201). And it was with this action that we return to the ‘festival of oppressed’ theme and the singing, shouting demonstrations shown in the video described above. As the authors describe the dynamic:
‘The Crossrail dispute quickly developed a new tactic of flashmob picketing. Without waring, hundreds of building workers…would appear out of nowhere and blockade the main roads outside Crossrail sites. The stations at Tottenham Court Road and Bond street were his repeatedly by this tactic…the huge 12-feet-high…hand-painted banners took on an iconic status as they were unfurled…in front of red London buses. The space in between the banners became mini celebrations…’ (p202).
Vigorous tactics came into play when, after a worker suffered 60 per cent burns from cutting through a high-voltage live wire at Crossrail, activists occupied the Office of Rail Regulation. As 2013 came in, rank-and-file flashmob protests celebrated the new year, and in March that year 170 mainly blacklisted workers attended the Blacklist Support Group AGM, with Frank Morris winning a standing ovation when he spoke about his struggle.
As the authors continue the story, ‘From that point on, Unite threw its full weight behind the battle to get Frank Morris reinstated…[I]t was without doubt the Unite leverage campaign that would land the killer blows.’ These ‘killer blows’ apparently consisted in ‘an upsurge in councils passing motions banning blacklisters from public contracts…protestors with vuvuzelas and a giant inflatable rat’ – a tactic, like the vuvuzelas, copied from the vigorous, if highly bureaucratised US trade union movement.
In fact that very movement became involved when, in August, Unite organisers flew to Chicago, where Ferrovial – one of the contractors involved in Crossrail [check] – was bidding for a lease to run the Midway Airport. Here, the Unite delegation met US union leaders and Democratic politicians who promised support in the battle against blacklisting (illegal in the US since President Roosevelt’s union-friendly regime in the 1930s). Among other expressions of support, Unite Food and Commercial Workers pledged, ‘We will do all we can to help our British sister union in its fight against blacklisting…’ (a statement published on the Unite website).
How they ‘helped’ is unclear…But the authors argue a few pages later (p207) that ‘Rank-and-file activists may have kick-started the Crossrail dispute but it is only the global political influence that a union like Unite can exert that swings a private meeting with a US senator so close to the top of the Democratic Party’ (p207). This leaves open the perhaps subversive question – what exactly did the US senator do?
This perhaps ungracious critique is sharpened by the account in the next chapter, ‘How much did the unions know?’ Given that it begins with a quote from a blacklisted worker – ‘I’ve spent about 11 years unemployed on and off…The thing that gets me the most, is when the unions are mentioned.’ A strange comment from one apparently well-served by US senatorial support…But perhaps not.
In fact, in an apparent turnaround from their positive stance, the authors report here that ‘For as long as rumours of a blacklist had circulated, so had suggestions that some union officials were…involved in the process.’ And in fact when the blacklist files finally emerged into the light of day in 2009, ‘the speculation of a union connection ended…there were entries that named a trade union or a union official as the source of the information’ (p209). As the authors themselves ask, ‘If someone chooses…to become an officer for a trade union, they often have a history of activism themselves. Why would they provide information about their own members to the employers?’
A good question, to which one answer might be ‘bureaucratisation’. Here, the authors dig into current industrial relations literature to present the alternative models of ‘partnership’ and ‘organising’ (pp210-1). While they state that as part of the Organising Model ‘[e]mphasis is placed on building grassroots networks of activists’ the way this ‘organising’ approach has actually panned out, particularly in Unite, was shown by my own initially well-intentioned research[i] to be a grotesque parody of the sort of grass-roots activity characteristic of the construction activists.
‘An Unnecessary Problem…’
Leaving aside theoretical debate, the authors’ comment that ‘[i]t is hardly unusual for union officials to adopt a more conciliatory approach…than the members and activists they represent’ sums things up nicely. As master blacklister Ian Kerr himself commented, ‘I can sympathise with the union officials…One or two people chose to disrupt a site. The poor union official had to resolve the two sides. Sometimes he didn’t want an unnecessary problem, nor did his union often, of an outbreak on a site of unofficially generated action…’ (quoted p211). Pity the poor union official, indeed.
As the authors now report, ‘The fact that some in the movement were prepared to work with blacklisting organizations…was confirmed’ when Economic League director and company director Jack Winder commented, ‘While I was with the League we had very good relations with certain trade-union leaders, who were concerned about problems caused by the far left.’ Those ‘certain leaders’ included EEPTU leader Eric Hammond, who had negotiated ‘the mother of all sweetheart deals’ with Rupert Murdoch in the mid-1980s, after which a group of the more independent activists broke away to join the EPIU (p212).
But, as the authors out it, ‘The biggest jewel in the crown of…the EETPU…was not Wapping but the Joint Industry Board…[whose] social –partnership model delivered high union membership…and…cash for the union machinery’ (p213). The JIB’s ‘moderation’ included opposition to the 1984-5 miners’ strike and was rewarded by honours from various governments.
Not surprising, therefore, that ‘many electricians viewed [the JIB] with suspicion. They argued that the prospect of assured subscriptions…as long as there was no disruption…meant that the union machinery tended to side with the employers…against the best interests of its…members’. Blacklisted electrician Andrew Allison, for example, recalled how he was ‘called a professional industrial hijacker by the area official of the EETPU…we were working normal…and he wanted people to work 7 days and 12-hour shifts.’ This theme of ‘EEPTU officials supporting employers’ emerged from talking to many other workers (p213).
Such loyalty was rewarded by the powers that be; in 1979 Tory minister Patrick Mayhew allowed the JIB to substitute its own dismissal procedure for the government’s own unfair dismissals legislation, meaning any electrician registered with the JIB lost their right to take a claim for unfair dismissal to an Employment Tribunal. This cosy arrangement was ‘invoked on numerous occasions, especially when union activists had been…victimised’. The one ‘positive’ aspect of this set-up was that electrical contracting retained direct employment (as against the lump), but this advantage was erased in 1987 when the EETPU and ECA set up a co-owned employment agency ESCA Services. Since then ‘[t]he industry has seen widespread casualisation…[with] ESCA at the forefront of this process…[as] one of the largest agencies supplying temporary agency to the building industry’ (pp214-5).Not surprisingly, activists were at risk in this context, with many ending up on TCA’s lists.
Nor is the EETPU the only union to behave in a decidedly undemocratic fashion in this milieu. UCATT leader Albert Williams was found to have faced serious allegations of ballot-rigging, with UCATT full-timers ‘receiving…free holidays and…golfing days’ from building companies. Funny how golf and complacent corruption seem to go hand in hand. In 1991 Channel 4 documentary ‘The Ballot Fixers’ revealed how Taylor Woodrow and Costain had invited UCATT’s leaders to Thames cruises, social evenings and overnight stays at posh hotels.
Finally, in the same year, an anti-corruption slate stood for the UCATT executive, beating all the incumbents. Many previous UCATT officials resigned, with some immediately moving to the EETPU, despite that union having now been expelled from the TUC. Its continued habit of making sweetheart deals, moreover, led to serious disquiet amongst activists as to the union’s involvement in blacklisting.
‘We pay the dues for the men’
The continued trend towards union mega-mergers, with the EEPTU merging with AEU to form the AEEU/Amicus, left the same suspect core of full-time officials in the leadership of what eventually became UNITE. Throughout this period of name-changing and restructuring, workers continued to be filed onto the blacklist, along with comments like ‘EEPTU says NO’, ‘Reported by local EEPTU official as militant’ and ‘…suspected of being EPUI members’ (p218). As investigating MP Ian Davidson delicately put it: ‘The “EETPU says no” would seem to suggest that there had been some input from a trade union’ (p218).
When in May 2003 DAF sacked 11 electricians from its Piccadilly site, including the long-suffering Bowker and Acheson, the victimised workers picketed the site for months; their unfair dismissal tribunal heard [manager] Michael Fahey protest, ‘Amicus is our union!’ to which the defence lawyer responded, ‘Your union? The employer’s union?’ ‘Yes,’ replied Fahey, ‘we pay the dues for the men.’ It has to be said that this section is confusing, with no previous reference to or identification of Fahey or of ‘Mr Furnage’ (in fact an Amicus official) in the legal judgement’s conclusion that ‘It was more than likely that Mr Furnage [sic] told him that Mr Acheson…was on site.’ The ‘sic’ suggests that it might been Mr Furney who suggested that: but we are left in the dark. Even more confusingly, another ‘F-man’ (Amicus official Roger Furmedge) enters the picture: as far as I can tell, he and Furnage are one and the same.
We could have done without these problems, but the basic point is crystal clear; union officials were colluding routinely with company management to exclude activists and add them to the blacklist. As a Tribunal judgement interprets DAF’s correspondence as confirming ‘that it would in effect screen for trade union membership’ (it should perhaps of substituted ‘activism’ for mere ‘membership’). Significantly, as the authors point out, ‘This was in the public domain five years before The Consulting Association was raided’ (p223).
‘Business-friendly…’
The targeting of the EPIU by EEPTU leaders was well-known in the industry. As one ex-Amicus official, Jim Simms, told the authors: ‘The EPIU was more or less blacklisted en bloc – it was civil war between AEEU and EPIU.’ At the same time ‘The employers obviously supported the EETPU and AEEU because they were business-friendly.’ A longstanding TBA file on one Frank Westerman was in fact terminated when he became an official, leading to the perhaps controversial conclusion that full-time trade union employment militates against activism. Indeed, Westerman provides useful evidence on this point: ‘As an officer of the union, I would oppose the EPIU…’ He would also ‘oppose the T&G and UCATT.’ Perhaps most significantly, ‘The important thing for us was always the agreement’ (p224). Instiutionalism personified.
In 1992, when Westerman was the EEPTU official responsible for the Vascroft site in Kensington (scene of the crane occupations), the company ‘cut a deal’ with the EEPTU, who ‘appointed a “steward” from outside the job who wouldn’t cause…any trouble’ (p225). As victimised activist Chris Clarke put it, ‘That business with Westerman was as cynical an operation as I have seen in 40 years in the labour movement.’
Westerman himself comments, ‘There were lots of things…at that time that people should not be proud of…All that fraternal stuff that goes on at conferences, when you get out on site it’s a different ball game…’ It would be interesting to have more details.
Moving on to the Jubilee Line (J/L) and Terminal 5 (T5) projects, the authors report that ‘the names and national insurance numbers of every electrician working for [contractor] Drake and Scull were circulated by [its] head of human resources…Scores were…added to [the TCA’s] blacklist. But it was an identical entry that appeared multiple times…that caused the most outrage…“Above information arose from liaison between union, contractor and managing agent at J/L”.’
The full-time union official for Drake& Scull was again our old friend/the above-mentioned Frank Westerman, who was ‘adamant’ that he had never heard of TCA: ‘At the end of the day, someone still has to…meet the employer and make the deal – and that was my job.’ Unfortunately, when the TCA entry for blacklisted electrician Michael Anderson turned up, it showed that four separate blacklisting firms operating at T5 had forwarded information about Anderson to TCA, with ‘all… contacts nam[ing] the Amicus union official [Westerman] as the source of the information’ (p227). Blacklisted steel erector Phil Willis also owes his TCA file to ‘a T.U. officer source within UNITE – amicus[ii] (FW)’ (p228).
The blacklisting of veteran Brian Higgins (see above) led to an investigation into the conduct of another union official, UCATT’s Jerry Swain; he and colleagues found ‘there was no case to answer’ and the UCATT executive took no action (p230). While Higgins condemned the union’s (non)response as ‘a downwright disgrace’ and called for an independent inquiry, general secretary Steve Murphy wrote to Higgins that without ‘some concrete evidence that UCATT officials were involved in blacklisting…it would be futile to have an…inquiry.’ So much for putting your members first.
Unlike the secretive UCATT executive, the authors of Blacklisted state categorically that ‘information has undoubtedly found its way from union officials to the TCA. The blacklist was an open secret in the building industry.’ This is confirmed by UCATT activist/ex-official Stuart Emms, himself the ‘beneficiary’ of a TCA file: ‘I was quite sure that blacklisting was going on…’ Emms himself had written to the Morning Star in 1999 that ‘…there has been a general move by employers to sack [activists]…The union will probably threaten the employer with an industrial tribunal…But the employer will gladly [put up with] this to break union organization and…the steward concerned will be blacklisted’ (quoted p231).
While many officials have denied being involved with blacklisting, ‘the names of officials do appear as the source of information on TCA documentation…’ (p232) and there is certainly evidence galore of collusion and hobnobbing between union officials and employers. The authors describe the ‘opulent venue’ of the Goring Hotel in Belgravia, where ‘directors of blacklisting firms met union officials from the EEPTU, AEEU, Amicus and UCATT…’ Ex-TCA chair and Skanska boss Stephen Quant recalled how he hobnobbed with union officials: ‘You can normally make a deal…provided…people had…a constructive manner…If you had a relationship with people that is ongoing, they are less susceptible to…outside influences’ (presumably those of activists in their own union). Further, while ‘some people were unreasonable…Many of the people on the trade union side were very reasonable…Amicus and…the EETPU…were quite sensible’ (p233-4).
This is not, of course, a case of innately ‘treacherous’ individuals but of the impact of a full-time union position far from the daily class war on the sites: ‘…even activists who were themselves blacklisted when working on site were prepared to socialize with employers once they took up the role of full-time officers…’ (p235). Former UCATT official and blacklisted activist Stewart Emms (see above), noted that when an official ‘I could never get into this going out and having a free beer with them…I remember George Brumwell once told me, “sometimes you get more from sugar than salt” ’ (pp235-6. Emms appears to be unusual in his tenacious loyalty to rank-and-file activism. As he reflected, ‘I’m not surprised some of the officials’ names are on the files…some of the officials got too close.’ Yet, as the authors point out, any delusions (and they were many) of genuine friendship between union officials and company directors were naïve, to say the least: ‘The industrial-relations managers were doing their job. They were playing the union officials…’ (p236).
Yet the cultivation of such ‘friendships’ was more than just social climbing: ‘[d]eveloping a friendly relationship with contractors was seen as part of the job’ by union officials. Why? Because officials could thereby ‘increase membership by recruiting the whole workforce…en masse…’ Hardly trade union democracy at work.
As ex-UCATT employee Jonathan Jeffries informed the authors ‘…union recruitment often involved recruiting the company rather than the workers.’ In his own words, ‘The contractor would suddenly bring in all these membership forms filled in…and…deduct the subs. This isn’t the usual situation…This is their employer saying you have to be in the union’ (p237). As the authors point out, ‘This way of doing things very often results in workers being signed up to the union without their knowledge.’ Yet the practice has been ‘repeatedly acknowledged’ by senior union officials. While Unite’s Gail Cartmail gave supportive evidence to a Parliamentary select committee in September 2012, including the point that employer payment of trade union contributions ‘is another way of sidelining genuine trade-union involvement’ (pp238-9) it is clear from much of the history outlined above that the Unite leadership was firmly involved in just such ‘sidelining’ for much of the lamentable history outlined in this book.
In fact, what was described as a ‘mafia tactic’ by one UCATT executive council member, appears, according to the authors, ‘to have…been part of the training given to some union officials.’ As future RMT leader Steve Headley recalled of his time at UCATT, ‘On my second week I was given training…[which consisted] of going to the office of a subcontractor…and negotiating a number of membership forms that the subcontractor would fill in and give to the union. At no time were any workers talked to or even approached…’ (p239).
As the authors conclude, ‘the exceptionally cosy relationship between certain union officials and building employers resulted in the very…managers responsible for blacklisting union members being invited to union conferences’ (pp239-40). Union as institution par excellence. Even after unions’ complicity in blacklisting was revealed, persecuted activist Steve Acheson was ‘continuously barracked by senior members of UCATT’ while speaking at the union conference. In response to shouts of ‘Name names’, Acheson duly read out a section from Ian Kerr’s notes which described how UCATT regional secretary George Guy, asked whether he would ‘employ’ Acheson, replied ‘I bloody wouldn’t’. The notes also record the head of industrial relations at construction company Vinci commenting that ‘Unions will have a problem now as they will get on site and cause problems.’ Leaving aside the grammar, the comment is significant in its distinction between ‘unions and the ‘they’ who belong to them, aka activists.
While both Unite and UCATT have carried out internal investigations into ‘collusion’ by union officials, these took place before either had access to the full TCA database. No past or present officials of either union suffered disciplinary action after the investigations, which had found that ‘there was no case to answer’ or ‘insufficient evidence’ for further action. Enter Gail Cartmel, who later told the Blacklist Support AGM in 2011 that union collusion may have taken place in the past but ‘shouldn’t have happened’ (p242). As she later ‘admitted’ to the authors, ‘If there have been failings of union officials in the past, then all can see how Unite has recognized those failings and responded to the magnificent campaign led by the Blacklist Support Group’ (p243). Better late than never, Gail!!
As the authors comment, changing the corrupt practices revealed by the TCA files ‘involves changing the way the trade unions have operated as well as the employers…the evidence suggests that…a culture developed among a cohort of union officials…that has led to a flow information to the blacklist files…’ I have left out the many qualifications in that statement, but the next paragraph refers to a ‘virtual conveyor belt of union officials immediately taking up posts as senior industrial relations managers or consultants with construction firms…’ One Jim Thomas, ex-Unite officer, is currently industrial relations manager for Laing O’Rourke] (p243), while UCATT national president John Flavin is now ‘working on industrial relations’ for Laing O’Rourke; a party to celebrate his 40 years in the industry ‘included high-profile guests from many of the big contractors and global property developers, as well as UCATT official Jerry Swain, himself involved in blacklisting activists (see above).
So much for ‘the unions’ – and, boy, it’s a lot. In the next chapter, ‘Under constant watch’, we move on to those more logical enemies, the security and surveillance services. The Economic League, for example, which had ‘spent decades…monitoring subversives’, was a key resource for the police, including the Special Branch, in identifying and targeting union activists, which they saw as ‘a key part of their work.’ As one Special Branch officer told the BBC: ‘It was very, very important that trade unions were monitored.’
Of course it wasn’t so much ‘trade unions’ as the activists within them who were so ‘very, very important’ to this work. Interestingly, the writers cite Ford’s Halewood plant as another workplace where job applicants’ names were submitted to the Special Branch – probably the Dagenham plant too, as many of the more politicised applicants for employment there were excluded or, once employed, later dismissed[iii]. However, the Special Branch didn’t have to do all the work – ‘the League had good relations with certain trade-union leaders who felt they had problems with the far left’ (p247).
As the authors report, ‘The construction industry had its own links with the secret state to ensure that an eye was kept on activists’; this was confirmed by former UCATT president John Flavin, ‘now an industrial-relations consultant for Laing O’Rourke’ (p248). Such team-shifting seems to again suggest that the Special Branch would get inside help in activist-spotting. Flavin confirms that ‘industrial relations managers…met regularly with a Special Branch officer…’ (p248). The traffic appears to be two-way: ‘former detective superintendent Brian Morris…became group manager for blacklisting firm Laing O’Rourke…[and] is now…security advisor to Crossrail’ (p249).
Yet none of these significant ‘coincidences’ would have been noticed if not for the on-the-ground ‘expertise’ of activists themselves. After Dave Smith was granted a third-party disclosure order against the ICO, his solicitor Declan Owens was asked to look through the TCA files; Owens suggested Dave carry out the research himself, and it was when he came across names like Frank Smith, Lisa Teuscher and Dan Gilman that these files ‘contained information that only the police could know (p250).
While Teuscher and Gilman were middle-class activists, Frank Smith was a bricklayer who had been involved in actions across London for better pay and conditions. As he recalled, ‘I was in poverty…it just became harder and harder to get onto any job where there was a decent run of work…’ Once again, it becomes clear that ‘the unions’ were at the bottom of this: as Ian Kerr testified, ‘The main part of [his contacts’ jobs] was to keep a very good liaison with their opposite numbers in the unions’ (p251). Although there was some attempt to implicate the police and portray the TCA files as pertaining to criminal activity, there were at the most 20 files in the database ‘relating to theft or similar…The remaining 99 per cent appear there due to trade union and political activism’ (p253).
This did not, of course, indicate that the police were not – at Special Branch level – heavily involved in monitoring the activities of blacklisted or on-site construction trade unionists. The SDS (Special Demonstration Squad), an ‘elite’ police undercover unit, was central to such operations, as became clear after undercover spy Mark Jenner, calling himself Cassidy, appeared at the radical Colin Roach Centre in Stoke Newington claiming to be an out-of-work builder. While the aims of the Special Branch were defined as being in opposition to ‘domestic extremism’, this phrase, as two Guardian journalists pointed out, was ‘taken to refer to political activity involving…“direct action”…’ (p255). Construction activism would fit very nicely into that category.
Jenner also spied on anti-racist and anti-fascist campaigners, and some of his information ‘appears to have made its way on to the blacklist files…Three…trade unionists…in contact with Jenner [reported] on how they were “observed” or “apprehended” while protesting against fascists on Remembrance Day 1999. ‘The files o[included] two trade unionists…[who were]part of a loose grouping of activists known…as the Away team’ (p256). In November 1999 one member of this ‘loose grouping’, Frank Smith, was stopped and searched; as he commented, ‘..what has that [protest] got to do with me being a builder? How would a building company know anything about that? It could only come from the police.’ And the incident was transformed on Smith’s TCA file as evidence that Frank was ‘politically dangerous’. Police Officer Peter Francis is quoted as recalling, ‘I knew Frank was involved in Militant but it was primarily his role within the Away Team that I was interested in’ (quoted p257). Take note, Militant – oops sorry, Socialist Party.
The TCA’s focus on workplace union activism as the main enemy is /demonstrated/emphasised by its listing of RMT activists Steve Headley and Mick Lynch, ‘leading to concerns in the union about the extent to which it had been targeted’ (p259). In general, ‘Jenner’s considerable involvement with trade unions…over many years is beyond doubt’ (p261). And we thought ‘trade unions’ were ‘old-fashioned’.
True, the ‘glory days’ of the Special Branch industrial section ‘had shrunk to just two detective sergeants and two detective constables by the mid-1990s (p262). But the entire role of the section and an ‘almost identical’ branch of MI5 was ‘to spy on trade unions’ (p263), and in cases where those ‘unions’ (or rather their members) reasserted themselves, the police agents were swift to respond: ‘Unite members involved in a British Airways dispute in 2014…complained about being put under surveillance by the Asset Protection group [good name], which is…staffed by police officers’ (p266).
Our construction activists’ experience of the wider political context led them to become active in the environmental movement. One recent Balfour Beatty AGM was ‘taken over completely’ by building worker supporters of comedian Mark Thomas, who had campaigned against the Ilisu Dam in Turkey; this project ‘would have destroyed a key cultural site and caused thousands of people to be relocated.’ The campaign against the dam was supported by the London region of UCATT. Balfour Beatty withdrew from the project, and the Dam has never been built (p268). The lessons of politicised activism and ‘trade union power’ are significant.
A similar episode involving the Australian Builders’ Labourers’ Federation (BLF) and its leader Jack Mundey its recorded here. Mundey, whose name is included on the blacklist, and his union refused to demolish the Royal Botanical Gardens in Sydney to make way for a car park; ‘the BLF imposed a green ban, and…the Gardens still remain today’; the same occurred when the historic Rocks community in Sydney was threatened with demolition (p272).
This chapter ends with a return to Steve Acheson’s lonely protest outside the Fiddlers Ferry power station; after the company claimed that the action ‘presented a potential threat to the national grid and national security’, Steve won an appeal at the High Court in October 2009, with the judge describing this ‘argument’ as ‘fanciful bordering on paranoia’ (p279).
Yet activists continued to draw police attention with their ‘various days of action’ over terms and conditions, in addition to blacklisting. Incredibly, the City of London police issued weekly what they called a ‘terrorism/extremism update for the City of London business community’ (p279). Some community. In an early issue, the document follows what it calls ‘a round-up of terrorist activity around the globe’ with notice of a construction industry day of action. Later, it warned of an electricians’ strike at Balfour Beatty, concluding the article with a reminder to ‘remain alert’ alongside the anti-terror hotline number. Terrorists indeed…
The real criminal activity, of course, lay with the police themselves. In October 2014, over five years after the ICO raid and ‘repeated denials…of any involvement by the police with The Consulting Association, John McDonnell MP was able to name the head of police liaison at NECTU (National Extremism Coordination Tactical Coordination Unit) as the senior officer who had given a powerpoint presentation on activist ‘extremism’ to the TCA (p282).
Blacklisted’s last chapter, ‘Own up! Clean up! Pay up!’ draws our attention to the fact that while blacklisting has by now been fully uncovered, with MP Michael Meacher ‘set[ting] out clearly’ in a speech to blacklisted workers in 2013 that ‘the failure to bring justice is borne by every section of the state.’ And yet, and yet… ‘still no-one has offered any redress’ (p285). The truth is coming out, but…‘[s]o slowly that some blacklisted workers who played a key role in the campaign have passed away without seeing justice’ (p285).
On 20th November 2013 – better late than never – the TUC held a National Day of Action on blacklisting which was ‘hailed…as a marvellous success’ (p286). Leadenhall Street in the City was closed for an hour as the Blacklist Support Group and unite protest blocked the road outside the Laing O’Rourke ‘Cheesegrater’ development. Yet TUC demands to blacklisting companies to ‘Own Up!’ have been, like so many other demands, ignored by the powers-that-be. While one – and only one – firm, Balfour Beattie, has attempted to defend its use of TCA, the ‘justification’ offered was their ‘seek[ing] to…prevent any disruption caused on our construction sites…by unofficial and unjustified [!] industrial action…’ (p287). Well, we, um, already knew that.
Meanwhile, despite the activists’ welcome exposure of these vampires to the light, ‘to date not a single set of TCA minutes’ has been disclosed by any of the firms involved. The authors wonder in their conclusions whether, ‘Given the revelations about the undercover policing of protest movements that the secret police thought were a threat to democracy…were trade unions also considered a threat to national security?’ Wow, what a thought. Of course, as pointed out above, passim, it is less ‘trade unions’ than their activist members who can be ‘accused’ of that disturbing threat.
Indeed, the role of ‘the unions’ in their more institutional capacity remains less than /galvanic/. The TUC has ‘called for the companies to “Clean Up!”’ (p289), but this, like so many ‘calls’, has gained little in the way of a response. Indeed, of the 39 ‘alleged’ TCA contacts named by Ian Kerr, ’78 per cent remain in senior HR roles within construction while 61 per cent are still working in HR at the same firms they [worked in] when…interact[ing] with the TCA’ (p289). One Dianne Hughes, for example, ex-HR professional at Carillion, is now HR director for the Big Lottery Fund – somehow an apt career move. As for Sheila Knight, former personnel director for the appropriately-named Drake and Scull, one of her many successful career moves includes ‘teaching employment law and human resource management’ (p290). Ms Knight is clearly skilful at managing human resources.
Any remorse over their exposure as blacklisters is clearly remote from the conscience of these high-flying entrepreneurs, or indeed their ‘human resources advisors; as Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD) employee relations ‘expert’ Mike Emmott told his audience at the Manchester Industrial Relations Society in November 2014 that blacklisting was ‘a big fuss about very little’. Employers’ federations clearly agree; not one has discussed the issue at their meetings.
More than five years after the TCA raid, eight of the contractors involved have launched a compensation scheme, clearly spurred on by a High Court group litigation order involving – those same eight contractors (p290). However, any celebrations would have been abruptly curtailed after it was discovered that ‘the cast majority of those on the blacklist were likely to be offered a one-off payment of £1000 ‘without an apology but with the proviso that all legal claims were dropped’ (p291). At this, the BSG delegation walked out of the meeting where the proposals were put forward. As they summed up their response:
‘These are not proposals designed for genuine negotiations. It is a piss-take masquerading as a publicity stunt…They can shove their grand right up their profit margin.’
The ‘compensation’ scheme was nevertheless launched (unilaterally), with a breathtaking ‘spin’ giving the impression that ‘unions’ jointly supported the scheme. Left-wing MPs, taken in by the statement, welcomed the development and announced that the scheme had been ‘agreed between trade unions and employers’. However, only a few days later they realised that the firms had ‘completely ignored’ the MPs’ own recommendations. The catalyst was a letter sent by the industry’s spin doctor which claimed falsely that unions and blacklisted workers supported the scheme. MPs also took apart the low levels of compensation offered. Yet ‘[d]espite grovelling apologies to MPs and promises to…make amendments…no changes were made and the scheme remains fundamentally the same…’ (p293). Meanwhile, ‘the most glaring omission from the compensation scheme was any offer of jobs…’ (p294).
The need for a full public inquiry has been raised by ‘every major trade union’, but David Cameron reaffirmed his opposition to this as recently as last summer; analysis of construction companies and their political donations shows – no surprise – that construction companies like McAlpine are regular contributors to the Tories. While the Labour Party, to its credit, pledged a full inquiry by ‘the next Labour government’, at the time of writing we know too well that…there is no next Labour government.
The final section of Blacklisted, headed ‘A series of lucky breaks’, illustrates how arbitrary the whole process of exposure has been. An ICO staff member ‘happened to read the article in the Guardian’ on blacklisting and dropped it on ICO investigator David Clancy’s desk; Clancy himself had happened to visit Steve Acheson that morning and heard of yet another withdrawn job offer. There’s more; but as blacklisted worker Mark Thomas sums up the dynamic, ‘The tragedy is…we were lucky to get this. The tragedy is we have grabbed [only] a snippet of this.’ The authors note that ‘[e]ven when legislation did make it on to the books it was not enacted’ (p297). If anything, investigation has shown that blacklisting has extended its reach beyond construction to retail, railways, airlines and banking…and beyond. As the authors point out, ‘blacklisting is a global phenomenon that has been going on for centuries’ (p298). This is a class war. And like class war in general, it’s never over – until the final victory.
[i] Sheila Cohen ‘ ‘, Gall ed
[ii] Sic – the TCA files are full of grammatical errors.
[iii] Cf Sheila Cohen ‘Notoriously Militant: the Story of a Union Branch’, Merlin Press 2013, Chapter Five.
Originally posted on 
Barry Biddulph reflects on Marxism and Nationalism. 
recent comments