Where firms only employ their workforce on casualised contracts or via employment agencies, bosses can dismiss staff with barely any legal comeback. It’s no surprise that industries with a precarious workforce, low union density, and where workers who complain about safety get sacked, also have the highest levels of workplace fatalities and serious accidents. 

Construction is a sector where major contractors have repeatedly fired and blacklisted safety reps. Unsurprisingly, a well-founded expectation of victimisation has developed amongst workers, who responded by creating a covert model of union organising.

Through countless informal discussions, activists from different unions share their experiences of fighting for better health and safety on site, and in so doing shape a ‘collective consciousness’. Workers new to union activity, soon hear about iconic disputes and safety campaigns of the past, but also pick up tips for organising on building projects today.

I’ve fought alongside construction workers from across the UK, and our collective experience provides grounded advice for anyone organising in a difficult work environment.

The most important lesson is that one heroic individual challenging an employer is easily got rid of. We’re not looking for martyrs. To make significant improvements in site safety, workers need to act collectively. But when bosses view anyone discussing the lack of PPE or the state of the toilets as ‘troublemakers’, a concerted effort is made to conceal early union activity from the employer.

SAFETY STING  An award-winning Unite safety rep victimised by his NHS bosses for his union activities has won justice at an employment tribunal  Emails between managers had described Franco Villani as a ‘wasp’ that needed ‘swatting’. more

A steel erector from Kent described “whispers around the bottom of columns” out of earshot from supervisors.

At the Pik-A-Pak electrical wholesalers in Ipswich, workers fighting back against bullying and discrimination met in a café away from the workplace.

If workers are disgruntled over a particular safety issue, a starting point is to bring together a small nucleus of co-workers prepared to act collectively to improve the situation.

An electrician from Scotland described conversations during tea breaks in the back of a van, where he would mention cuts in the NHS, as a way of sounding out potential allies.

But to make a real difference to health and safety, at some point workers need to come out of the shadows and present their complaint to management. The question of when and how to ‘go public’ therefore becomes a crucial tactical decision.

Calling a meeting of workers in the canteen always changes the dynamic. Having a nucleus of people who will back each other up, means the initial meeting is more likely to succeed.

A bricklayer recalled how the lack of tea making facilities helped muster support. “This cup of tea became a totemic issue about where you stood. “If you’d just arrive on site, I’d talk to you saying h168we’re entitled to a tea break, half an hour and they’re supposed to provide tea making facilities and a microwave, this is just basic’.

“Gradually we’d develop a climate of opinion so that the management would be in a fragile position.

“Over time, you’d weigh up the balance of forces. At the tea break stage, I wouldn’t be a rep, but then if a foreman sticks his head into the canteen and says, ‘what’s going on?’ I’d say: ‘what about this tea break, we can’t work without a cup of tea’ and then coz we were all sitting in the canteen it became a show of opinion.”

This first public challenge often became an all or nothing turning point. If management pressurised the workforce to go back on site, this would almost always result in the person who organised the meeting being victimised or sacked.

If no-one else came out in solidarity, any chance of unionising the workplace would be instantly extinguished and the poor safety conditions would be unresolved. But if the workers stood together and refused to leave the canteen until a kettle was sorted, this changed the entire balance of power. Management would be forced to provide the proper welfare facilities the workers were asking for, and the union would formally elect a rep.

Being brutally honest: some we win, some we lose. Even after an initial victory, union organisation is always fragile, so new clued-up safety reps continue to hold regular meetings: Setting up a tradition, the expectation of having a meeting to sort out collective issues.

This is democracy in action, but also a means of self-preservation – especially important in a sector with a high level of labour churn, where newer workers may have no affinity with a safety rep elected prior to their arrival on site.

An electrician from London explained: “We’d have meetings, but we’d also constantly talk on the shopfloor to find out what issues were around. Part of that comes from a philosophy of wanting to organise amongst people; part of it is self-protection.”

AMAZON REVENGE   Amazon has been accused of targeting 60 trade union members with disciplinary action after narrowly defeating a union-busting blighted recognition vote at its Coventry warehouse in summer 2024. more

A carpenter on a building site where Eastern European workers were being paid less than their British counterparts, explained: “We were trying to get workers to be prepared to take up issues on site, such as poor safety and people getting paid different rates. The conversations were never about joining the union.

“They were about let’s stick together and we might be able to do something about this. Lets’ stand together first, and introduce the union later. We increasingly tried to get people down the pub in twos and threes, to have informal conversations rather than a formal meeting.”

Leading industrial relations academic Professor Sian Moore has described union members passing secret notes to each other, rather than using the employer’s email system, as being similar to clandestine techniques used by the underground French Resistance.

Construction is by no means the only sector where workers who stand up for their rights are victimised, nor is it the only industry where rank and file union activists have organically developed a more covert form of union organising.

In the Scottish electronics industry, ‘shadow reps’ operate under the radar in companies hostile to trade unions.

The smaller independent unions - the IWW, UVW and IWGB - all operate a form of covert organising amongst precarious couriers and delivery drivers.

With the increasing use of casualised staff across the whole economy, perhaps it’s time for covert union organising techniques to be given more prominence in training courses for safety reps.   

• Moore, S (2004). Union mobilization and employer counter-mobilization in the Statutory Recognition Process, in Kelly and Willman, eds., Union Organization and Activity, Routledge, London.
• www.hazards.org/blacklistblog

Safety rep wins victimisation tribunal

An award-winning Unite safety rep victimised by his bosses for his union activities has won justice at an employment tribunal.

Franco Villani (right), a maintenance engineer employed by York Teaching Hospital Facilities Management LLP, is an elected Unite workplace rep at Bridlington Hospital.

In addition to being a union safety rep, Franco is also a ‘fairness champion’ at the hospital and a mental health first aider.

The veteran safety rep is a past winner of the TUC Yorkshire and Humberside Region Health and Safety Representative of the Year Award. In 2021, he received an award from the hospital Trust for his “outstanding commitment, vigilance and dedication to health and safety.”

However, an internal email exchange in June 2023 revealed senior managers using derogatory language about Franco, referring to him as a “wasp” that needed “swatting”.

Franco took his case to an employment tribunal, with the support of his union. The tribunal found this language exposed the employer’s intention to suppress his union activities rather than address any genuine workplace issues and they wanted to “clip the claimant’s wings.”

There had been repeated incidents where management had attempted to limit his union role and had encouraged colleagues to submit workplace complaints against him to deter him from continuing to report health and safety concerns, the panel found. Ruling in Franco’s favour in December 2024, the tribunal ordered his employer to pay £10,000 in compensation for the distress and harm he endured.

Unite has expressed its concern, however, that the manager in the email exchange remains Franco’s line manager and that other cases of trade union intimidation and detriment have been reported about the same employer.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “It is shameful that union members and reps are still being targeted in this manner as if this was still the 1930s. That this was an NHS trust makes it all the more disgraceful. Mr Villani is a vital union rep keeping his colleagues safe and well at work. Yet he was the target of management at the hospital.

“Unite will never stand for such behaviour and I'm delighted the tribunal found in his favour. This must act as a stark lesson for other employers who may be tempted to try and treat union reps with anything less than respect and dignity.”
 
Franco said: “It saddens me that I have had to go through this process to protect the hospital patients, visitors and staff. The unacceptable treatment that I have been subjected to has had a detrimental effect on me.”
 
Neil Guss, the employment lawyer at Thompsons Solicitors who represented Franco, said: “The judgment reinforces the vital protections that trade union representatives rely on. Our client was targeted simply for ensuring workplace safety, and instead of being supported, he was intimidated. The Tribunal rightly found these actions unlawful.”

www.hazards.org/victimisation • Back to main story

Amazon union members targeted after a failed
recognition vote in the face of unionbusting

Amazon has been accused of targeting 60 trade union members with disciplinary action after narrowly defeating a recognition vote at its Coventry warehouse last summer.

The GMB said in February 2025 all 60 workers were involved in action at the warehouse – where it has about 700 members out of a workforce of at least 1,500 – that culminated in a ballot on formal recognition in July 2024 that failed by only a handful of votes.

The union said the result came just weeks after union-busting tactics at Amazon’s Coventry site were exposed when it was revealed workers had been bombarded with an unrelenting campaign of anti-union messages by company bosses, including multiple anti-union seminars.

One worker at the warehouse said there had been multiple rule changes to productivity targets and how “non-productive time” – such as trips to the toilet or equipment failure – were recorded and assessed since late last year, with delays in dealing with queries. Workers had fallen foul of those rule changes, leading to written warnings and the threat of dismissal, they claimed.

Amanda Gearing, a GMB senior organiser, said the number of disciplinary actions had increased significantly since the ballot and Amazon was “clearing out what they see as troublemakers” as it tried to win new government contracts. She said a recent GMB survey of union members working for Amazon found that 81 per cent were unhappy working for the company.

“Amazon is one of the globe’s wealthiest corporations, taking revenge against their own workers for daring to stand up for better pay and safer conditions,” Gearing said.

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OUT OF THE SHADOWS

Standard organising techniques taught on trade union education courses encourage new safety reps to raise the profile of the union and advertise their name on a noticeboard. But top trade union tutor Dave Smith warns when union recognition is absent, anti-union management can victimise workers who raise genuine concerns about safety, so sometimes more covert approaches may be necessary.