Month: May 2015

The Blacklist Support Group (BSG) is applying to the Home Office for ‘core participant’ status in the Pitchford public inquiry into failures in undercover policing set up by Teresa May.  This follows claims in the book ‘Blacklisted’ by Dave Smith and Phil Chamberlain, that undercover police officers spied on trade union activists from the construction industry and intelligence gathered was passed onto big business – resulting in blacklisting of union activists.

Imran Khan & Partners solicitors are representing BSG. The firm is also representing Doreen Lawrence in the Pitchford Inquiry.

BSG says it is the only organisation to have officially complained to the IPCC over police collusion in the Consulting Association blacklist scandal. IPCC admitted in correspondence with BSG that  “every Special Branch in the country routinely supplied information about prospective employees’ in correspondence from the police watchdog.”

As a ‘core participant’ in the Pitchford inquiry, the BSG would be part of a central group of parties entitled to some input into the remit and to see the evidence before it is put into the public domain.

BSG says has established a number of individuals on the construction industry blacklist were spied on by undercover police officers from different units, including the “notorious” Special Demonstration Squad. The undercover officers identified include Bob Lambert, Mark Kennedy, John Dines, Mark Jenner and former undercover police officer turned whistleblower, Peter Francis. In an interview published in ‘Blacklisted’, Peter Francis admitted targeting prominent union activists from the construction industry.

Special Demonstration Squad undercover officer Mark Jenner, became a member of UCATT under his false name during his deployment and was a regular visitor to picket lines and meetings in London during the late 1990s.

BSG says one high ranking police officer, DCI Gordon Mills from the National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit (NETCU), attended meetings and gave a PowerPoint presentation to the illegal blacklisting body Consulting Association. According to ‘Blacklisted’ there was a two way exchange of information between the police unit and the covert blacklister.

Dave Smith, BSG secretary and a victim of undercover police surveillance, said: “Hopefully by the BSG applying for core participant status, we will be able to guarantee that spying on trade unions and passing over information to private companies becomes a theme within the Pitchford inquiry. Police and security services spying on trade unions is not a one off aberration, it is standard operating procedure by the state.”

He added: “Undercover police units and security services were involved in operations against trade unions at Grunwick, Shrewsbury, Wapping and during the Miner Strike. It is known that activists and officers from UCATT, Unite, RMT, FBU, UNISON, CWU, NUT and PCS have been targeted by undercover police units.

“BSG hope that all the unions affected come together and put in a joint submission to Pitchford, probably under the umbrella of the TUC. Official pressure from France’s O’Grady and other general secretaries could have a significant influence on the scope of the Inquiry.”

There was stunned silence followed by audible gasps in the High Court when a barrister read out documentary evidence indicating that major  firms had deliberately set out to destroy evidence of their complicity in a blacklisting conspiracy.

In a case that returned to the courts in May 2015, unions UNITE, UCATT and GMB and the law firm Guney, Clark and Ryan, acting for the Blacklist Support Group, are representing 581 blacklisted union members in ‘group litigation’ against 40 of the UK’s largest construction firms, including Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd, Balfour Beatty, Carillion, Kier, Costain, Laing O’Rourke, Vinci, Skanska and Bam.

On 15 May 2015 a procedural hearing considered case management issues. The hearing was to prepare the ground for the full trial, scheduled for 16 May 2016 and set to last 10 weeks. The Blacklist Support Group says that with directors of multinational firms and former undercover police officers set to give evidence, “this will turn into a show trial for the construction industry.”

The latest hearing considered disclosure of documents to be used in the trial. The firms have repeatedly denied holding documents relating to the illegal Consulting Association blacklist, despite invoices proving that directors of the companies attending quarterly meetings from 1993-2009. Legal representatives of the firms told the court that to search for the relevant documentation would cost them £27 million and that they had already provided a list of the documents found on their computers.

But Matthew Nicklin QC, representing blacklisted UCATT members, told the court that the  limited disclosure by the firms was “worse than useless”, adding that the firms were being deliberately obstructive.

He then read from an internal Consulting Association record (above) that claimed David Cochrane, director of human resources at Sir Robert McAlpine and chair of the Consulting Association when it was raided in 2009, instructed the covert blacklister’s chief executive Ian Kerr to destroy blacklisting documents and to ring round others to tell them to do the same.

The document was a hand written record made by Ian Kerr of a series of conversations he had with senior industry figures immediately after the Information Commissioner’s Office served its warrant. The note read to the High Court stated that David Cochrane told Ian Kerr: “Ring everyone – Cease trading – Close down – We don’t exist anymore – Destroy data – Stop Processing.”

The note also records details of conversations with other senior construction industry managers who say they have already destroyed the documents they held.

Roy Bentham, a blacklisted joiner from Liverpool and member of the Blacklist Support Group, said: “The wheels of justice turn painfully slow but we now have a date for the full trial.” He added: “I look forward to seeing those captains of industry being questioned about their illegal blacklist with ruined so many lives.”

Dave Smith, BSG secretary, said: “We have repeatedly called for jail sentences for these wretches who violated our human rights. If the destruction of documentary evidence is proved in court, those responsible should be prosecuted for perverting the course of justice and be sent to prison. That would be real justice.”

Environmental activists who were on a construction industry blacklist have spoken out in support of a High Court case against the companies involved. On 14 May 2015, the blacklisting group litigation – equivalent to a US style class-action – returns to the High Court with 500 blacklisted workers taking on over 40 of the UK’s largest construction companies.

The environmental activists, who say their own quest for answers and for justice has been stymied by the ‘incompetence’ of the Information Commissioner’s Office, are backing the Blacklist Support Group’s campaign for justice, including legal action and protests. The latest action comes this week, as the court action resumes at the Royal Courts of Justice.

Blacklist Support Group Protest
9:30am Thursday 14 May
Royal Courts of Justice
The Strand
London

The illegal system run by the Consulting Association was used by most of the big names in construction until it was exposed in 2009. More than 3,200 people had files detailing their instances of political activity, raising of health and safety concerns or trade union involvement. Information in the files was provided by the companies themselves as well as police. Whilst most were actual construction workers, with some having dossiers running to nearly 50 pages of personal details, over 200 environmental activists – known as the ‘greenlist’ – also had files.

When the Information Commissioner’s Office raided the Consulting Association in 2009 they only seized an index list of greenlist files, the files themselves were destroyed. This meant there is no evidence of what was in the files or which ones had been used to deny work to any individual, and so greenlisters’ lawyers advised against continuing the legal case.

Several of the companies who used the list set up a compensation scheme, in a bid to head off potentially far more expensive court settlements. It gives £4,000 to anyone who was on the list, more if they can show their files were used. It is capped at £100,000. With some workers denied a living for a decade or more, the maximum payout doesn’t even cover loss of earnings for many, let alone any interest of damages. Many of them, co-ordinated by the Blacklist Support Group, are boycotting the derisory compensation offer and are fighting on in the courts.

But for the greenlisters, the legal fight seems over. With no obvious alternative cause of redress, some have accepted the scheme’s payouts and made donations to the Blacklist Support Group.

A statement from greenlist activists provided to the Blacklist Support Group noted: “Thanks to the incompetence of the Information Commissioner’s Office, only a fraction of the files were seized. Greenlisters only have a list of whose files existed. Had ours not been among those lost, we would have the chance to fight our legal case properly and to seek more answers. It was a breach of our right to privacy, to freedom of association, and our right to a unionised, safe workplace. But this paltry sum is the best we can hope for.

“Most of us were on the list because our details had been passed from brushes with the law in environmental protests. It seems likely that police were involved in supplying this information, and we note that the Independent Police Complaints Commission admit blacklist files contained information that can only have come – illegally – from police or security services. They worked not to uphold the law but in order to uphold corporate profit.

“Even if greenlisters did not suffer financial hardship from being on the list, that was not through want of trying on the part of the police and blacklisters. More than that the 3,000 construction workers suffered huge hardship over decades. This was a colossal conspiracy to invade people’s personal lives, the working class equivalent of phone hacking. We stand in solidarity with the blacklisted construction workers. We are proud to donate funds from the wrongdoers to the fightback against them. We hope it can help their court case get the truth and justice that has been denied to us.”

Dave Smith, the secretary of the Blacklist Support Group, commented: “Corporate and state surveillance on peaceful protesters is a national scandal. The UK secret political police units considered trade unions to be the ‘enemy within’ and targeted UK citizens participating in democratic campaigns; routinely passing intelligence onto big business. The Blacklist Support Group is proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with social justice activists and pledge our continued support for those campaigning for a full public inquiry into the anti-democratic conspiracy carried out by multinational corporations and the security services.”

• blacklisted environmental activist Ellenor Hutson is available for interview. Contact BSG for further details.