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The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has confirmed it holds documents relating to another blacklist of trade union members and activists in the construction industry, specifically around those involved in raising health and safety issues.
Gvien the current anti-union environment stoked by the Coalition Government and its stated intention to destroy the health and safety culture of the UK; this is hardly surprising, and indeed it may well not just be in the construction industry that this is happening.
 The confirmation of yet another blacklist, came in a letter from ICO deputy commissioner David Smith to Ian Davidson MP, chair of the Scottish Affairs Select Committee investigation into blacklisting.
The letter states that the ICO holds information including “faxes to and from Hayden Young Limited which contain the names of what appear to be individual construction workers and their NI numbers, a list of nine contact names and addresses of what appear to be individual managers within different construction companies and a small sample of names and national insurance numbers of individual construction workers on what are termed the Pfizers, Royal Opera House and Jubilee Line lists.”
This new blacklist is separate to The Consulting Association list exposed by ICO four years ago in 2009.
In evidence this year to the select committee, a whistleblower said this additional list was coordinated by Sheila Knight, then personnel director of construction firm Emcor and a former deputy director of the conciliation service ACAS.
A statement from the Blacklist Support Group said:
“Given that the ICO failed to tell MPs that they held this additional blacklist and also failed to mention that they held documents proving that senior police officers attended the secret blacklist meetings of The Consulting Association, the Blacklist Support Group questions whether the ICO is the correct organisation to be carrying out any further investigations into blacklisting and are calling for a fully independent public inquiry.”
UCATT, the Trade Union for construction workers have renewed their call for a full public inquiry into construction blacklisting.
UCATT made their call after a newspaper recently reported that all police “special branches” may have been actively involved in construction blacklisting. It is also understood that the security services were involved in providing information to the blacklisters about construction workers.
UCATT understands that a senior blacklister had a military background and could have acted as conduit between the military, security forces and the police, in placing workers on the blacklist and in supplying further material on workers who were already on the blacklist.
 Steve Murphy, General Secretary of UCATT, (left in the picture); said:
“Everyone who has suffered because of the blacklist needs to know how the state was involved in blacklisting and how exactly highly sensitive information came to be placed on the files of blacklisted victims. This can only be achieved through a full public inquiry.”
It has also come to light that the Information Commissioners Office have been holding the information on what appears to be a separate non-Consulting Association blacklist of construction workers.
As well as the “new blacklist”, there were also several additional Consulting Association blacklists which were not an integrated part of the main blacklist, including one of environmental activists.
In November 2012 when Ian Kerr the former head of the Consulting Association gave evidence to the Scottish Affairs Committee, he told the committee under oath, that he was aware of other groups and individuals involved in the blacklisting of construction workers.
Mr Murphy added:
“UCATT has been warning since 2009 that the Consulting Association was not operating the only blacklist in construction. It now appears that the ICO knew this to be the case all along and yet only now have they revealed the details of a separate blacklist.”
When the ICO Deputy Director David Smith gave evidence to the Scottish Affairs Committee in October 2012, he stunned the committee by admitting that the ICO had only confiscated 5% of the files available when they raid the Consulting Association in February 2012. The remaining files were then destroyed by Mr Kerr.
Mr Murphy further concluded:
“Serious questions must be asked of the ICO into their failure to reveal the full details of the blacklisting scandal at a far earlier date. It would be a serious error of judgement if the Government continued to rely on the ICO to investigate blacklisting.”
Source: UCATT / TUC Risks / Unionsafety
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