Campaigners from the Blacklist Support Group provided some extra entertainment at the swish National Building Awards 2010 dinner at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel.
The campaign presented its own alternative Blacklister of the Year Awards as the construction industry revellers assembled for the 22 April black tie event.
Balfour Beatty won the category for “Most Enforcement Notices Issued by the Information Commissioner,” with a soaraway 14 notices.
Skanska headed the “Largest Blacklisting Invoice” category, with £28,123 in one year, pipping Sir Robert McAlpine’s £26,842 in payments to covert blacklisting group The Consulting Association.
The former head of the association, Ian Kerr, bagged the “Lifetime Achievement Award.”
A special category, the “Hear No Evil See No Evil Speak No Evil Award”, went to Skanska for its three month internal blacklisting investigation that found no-one in management did anything to merit even a verbal warning.
Safety watchdog the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) received an honourable mention in this category.
Law professor Keith Ewing of Kings College London welcomed the awards.
He said: “Blacklister of the Year is an important initiative to remind those attending the National Building Awards of the scandal that hangs over their industry.
“While the fat cats purr with delight at their lavish black tie banquet in the Grosvenor House Hotel, they need to be confronted – in what is an era of austerity for everyone else – about their role in ruining the lives of thousands of British construction workers.”
