Unite Member Still Blacklisted

A year after Unite won a case in the high court over blacklisting practices, workers affected are still blacklisted, according to the union. In addition, the promised re-training of victims of these unfair practices by blacklisting companies during the case, has not yet surfaced.

This announcement from Unite has come as the union begins another court case, which will see more than 60 members come forward, also victims of the blacklisting.

The original court case brought by Unite addressed the unfair employment practice of blacklisting workers, and led to compensation totalling £20 million for 400 blacklisted workers.

Continuing efforts and calling for a re-launched investigation

Unite has been continuing its efforts since then, and discovered that it is possible that employment agencies are running their own blacklists.

Unite has continued to approach the Information Commissioners Office (the ICO) to re-launch the blacklisting investigation. The ICO, which was involved with the original investigation into the Consulting Association blacklisting practices, and is responsible for data privacy and protection, has said that it could call for new evidence to be brought forward about blacklisting, but that it will not do so until 2018 at the earliest.

Gail Cartmail, assistant general secretary for Construction of Unite said, ‘A year after the High Court case into blacklisting ended, it is all too obvious that the blacklisting of construction workers is still occurring. Despite blacklisting being a nasty secretive practice, Unite has been able to compile a dossier of these abuses. This is why it is imperative that the ICO re-opens its investigation into blacklisting in order for these practices to be fully exposed and action taken. These injustices will continue unchecked if, as feared, the ICO kicks blacklisting into the long grass and doesn’t even begin to seek evidence until 2018.’

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