Author Archives: Rory
US Republicans seek to silence whistleblowers
Republican lawmakers have indicated it is more important to let employers police themselves on workplace safety than it is to give workers protection when they blow the whistle on unsafe practices. In comments to Daily Labor Report last week, Republican Representative John Kline said his party would reject President Obama’s proposed budget for the Occupational [...]
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Cameron ignores call for a blacklisting public inquiry
The prime minister has said the police should investigate police complicity in the blacklisting of trade union and safety activists. The response came in parliament this week after two Labour MPs had called separately for a public inquiry into revelations from the Information Commissioner’s Office that information held by covert blacklisting outfit The Consulting Association [...]
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RMT demands publication of secret ‘RMT File’
Rail union RMT has demanded full disclosure of a secret ‘RMT File’ held by blacklisting organisation The Consulting Association. It says to date, the Information Commissioner has only released construction industry files compiled by The Consulting Association. These files, however, include explicit cross references to another ‘RMT File’ which remains unpublished. RMT believes this has [...]
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Police and MI5 linked to blacklist of site workers
The police or security services supplied information to a blacklist funded by the country’s major construction firms that has kept thousands of people out of work over the past three decades, the Observer has reported. It says the revelation came from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), which believes records that could only have come from [...]
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Blacklisting firm held file on oil industry academic
A secret blacklisting file opened on an academic who researched health and safety following the Piper Alpha oil rig disaster claims the offshore oil industry threatened to cut funding to his university if he “continued to cause problems”. Investigative journalist Phil Chamberlain, writing in his Taking out the trash blog, reveals that Professor Charles Woolfson [...]
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Law fails blacklisted construction worker
The construction giant Carillion has admitted a construction worker was blacklisted because of his trade union activities and efforts to improve site safety, but has escaped responsibility because he was an agency worker. The revelation came during an employment tribunal last week brought against the firm by engineer and former UCATT safety rep Dave Smith. [...]
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Blacklisting – latest YouTube video from the Blacklist Support Group.
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LibDems oppose safety rep protection
LibDems in the European Parliament have voted with centre right parties to ensure the failure of a proposal to protect workplace safety reps from blacklisting and victimisation. Last week’s vote in Strasbourg followed a debate on a mid-term review of the European Union’s health and safety strategy. Glenis Willmott MEP, leader of the Labour group [...]
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Top speakers at 29 October BSG AGM
Blacklist Support Group AGM update “One of the worst cases of organised human rights abuse ever in the UK” So said John McDonnell MP in 2009 following the discovery by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) of the illegal Consulting Association database containing personal sensitive information about 3,200 building workers. The Consulting Association database was being used for decades as [...]
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Full Carillion judgment exposes blacklisting scandal