Brian Higgins, Steve Acheson and Dave Smith presented Commissioner Andor with documentary evidence of secret blacklist files kept about their activities as safety reps in the British construction industry.
The files were compiled by the Consulting Association and provide damning evidence that major multinational construction firms systematically victimised and dismissed workers who raised concerns about health and safety issues or unpaid wages.
The files record varying levels of personal intrusion with sensitive information including addresses, national insurance numbers, work and medical history, press cuttings, union meetings attended, speeches made and political affiliations. Many entries on the files were supplied by senior industrial relations managers from major building firms after a rep had spoken to site managers about safety breaches.
Brian Higgins, secretary of Northampton UCATT, who has a blacklist running to 49 pages, said after the meeting: “The blacklist is an economic, social and political prison. I have served a life sentence and other workers continue to be imprisoned. In cases like my own, the blacklist effectively takes the form of house arrest because of its effect on a person’s social life.
“My wife was also deeply affected and badly scarred. More often that not, she was forced to financially support me, and our two children, on her low wage as a care worker. This has had a devastating effect on our standard of living. We just managed to keep our heads above water by sacrificing our social life.
“My wife had to take out loans, which we could not afford, since my credit rating was zero due to very long spells of unemployment. All of this is the direct result of the building employers deliberately using the blacklist, time and again, to deny me the right to work and earn a living.”
Building firms alleged to be participating in blacklisting include household names such as Sir Robert McAlpine, Balfour Beatty, Kier, Costain and Carillion in Britain; Laing O’Rourke in Ireland; Skanska in Sweden; Bam in the Netherlands and Vinci in France.
The right to join a trade union and not be victimised because of membership is enshrined in Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. But lack of any specific EU-wide legislation against blacklisting of individuals for safety reasons means thousands of workers have suffered appalling financial and family hardship because of the covert actions of building firms.
The meeting – arranged by Labour MEPs Stephen Hughes and Glenis Willmott who are championing the issue in the European Parliament – was addressed by Professor Keith Ewing of King’s College, London, who presented legislative options open to the EU.
