Photo opportunity
Protest by blacklisted workers
1:30pm, Tuesday 27 November 2012
Outside Houses of Parliament
Westminster, London
Ian Kerr, the only person to have been convicted because of the blacklisting scandal, will be giving evidence in parliament at a Scottish Affairs Select Committee investigation into blacklisting in employment on Tuesday 27 November.
Kerr was the Chief Executive of The Consulting Association, the covert blacklisting organisation that coordinated the blacklisting of trade union members. The organisation was financed and controlled by the UK’s largest construction firms, including Carillion, Balfour Beatty, Skanska, Costain, Kier, Bam and Vinci. Kerr was fined a £5,000 for a breach of the Data Protection Act in 2009.
Blacklisted workers from the Blacklist Support Group, who say their lives have been ruined by the illegal conspiracy, will pack the public gallery and protest outside parliament.
Steve Acheson, a spokesperson for the Blacklist Support Group, said: “I will be listening very carefully to the evidence given by Ian Kerr. That man has ruined my life. The secret files The Consulting Association kept on me were used to unfairly dismiss me on job after job for no more than raising genuine safety issues such as drying facilities and Weil’s Disease caused by rat urine.
“I consider Ian Kerr to be a criminal wretch but he was only the foot soldier for the Directors of multi-national construction firms. The Select Committee should demand that he names names. Who were the senior industry figures that paid his wages and orchestrated this vile conspiracy? What was the involvement of the police and corrupt trade union officials? Whether they are from big business, the state or the unions: the guilty should be brought to justice.”
Guney Clark & Ryan solicitors is currently taking a High Court claim for “tort of unlawful conspiracy” against Sir Robert McAlpine – the principal contractor on the Olympics stadium construction project – on behalf of over 100 workers from the Blacklist Support Group. The cases have a potential total value in the region of £600m.
For more info or for interviews with blacklisted workers contact:
Blacklist Support Group
email: blacklistsg@gmail.com
Blacklist blog
BSG on facebook