Protests against blacklisting are being held today around the UK, and the TUC - along with construction unions GMB, UCATT and Unite - is holding a lobby of Parliament to call for justice for the construction workers who were illegally targeted because of their union activities or for pushing for better health and safety on building sites.
The TUC is calling for a national inquiry into the sinister practice - 'Blacklisting is real. It has ruined thousands of lives. Families are still suffering because a worker joined a union or raised a health and safety issue. We need a full inquiry into its scope. It must have the legal power to call witnesses, seize records and put employers on the spot. Companies guilty of blacklisting should be barred from public contracts until they can demonstrate that they understand the basics of human rights and good industrial relations' said Frances O'Grady TUC General Secretary:
86 blacklisted building workers have launched a legal claim against the Sir Robert McAlpine construction company for conspiring with other firms to keep them out of work. Overall 3,400 workers were logged in the files of the so called Consulting Association, an organisation paid by dozens of construction firms to secretly collate industrial and political information on trade union and safety representatives. Nick Cohen, writing in yesterday’s Observer, contrasts the media silence on this ‘graver’ scandal with the wall to wall coverage of the newspaper phone hacking affair:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/29/nick-cohen-construction-workers-blacklist
