In a speech to the 2004 TUC Congress the then Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair said: "Over the weekend I got out the first speech I ever made to a Labour party conference not as leader but as Employment spokesman back in 1990. I said: a Labour government would introduce a minimum wage; a legal right to union recognition; sign the social chapter; restore trade union rights at GCHQ; improve maternity leave; introduce paid holidays; end blacklisting; and remove the power of automatic dismissal for those lawfully on strike. We have done every one of those things. But we only did them by being in government not in permanent opposition."
However in the case of blacklisting that was not quite the case. In fact no concrete action was taken contrary to Blair's hubris and lies.
Xperthr confirms that alrthough in 2003, the Government consulted on bringing in union blacklisting legislation, absolutely nothing came of the proposals. However following the revelations in March 2009 that construction firms had been keeping a secret database to vet workers for, among other things, trade union activities the proposals were resurrected.
http://www.xperthr.co.uk/blogs/employment-intelligence/2009/05/government-resurrects-union-bl.html.
A short second consultation ( http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file51729.pdf ) ended last month, with the Government planning "to seek Parliamentary approval for the regulations in the autumn and implement them urgently as soon as it can thereafter". http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8043735.stm
However in a new UCATT publication 'Ruined lives', Professor Keith Ewing examines in detail the practice of blacklising within the UK construction industry and concludes that the regulations fall far short of what is necessary to outlaw blacklisting and to compensate those victimised by companies using blacklisting.
http://www.ucatt.info/content/view/753/30/
Another example of a simple opportunity to secure justice for working people being wasted by Labour in Government.
