{"id":440,"date":"2010-11-17T15:59:14","date_gmt":"2010-11-17T14:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hazards.org\/blacklistblog\/?p=440"},"modified":"2010-11-17T15:59:14","modified_gmt":"2010-11-17T14:59:14","slug":"construction-firm-guilty-of-blacklisting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/blacklistblog\/2010\/11\/17\/construction-firm-guilty-of-blacklisting\/","title":{"rendered":"Construction firm guilty of blacklisting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A major engineering construction contractor has been found guilty by an employment tribunal of blacklisting a prominent trade unionist.<\/p>\n<p>Ashford Employment Tribunal ruled that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.unitetheunion.org\/news__events\/latest_news\/construction_company_found_gui.aspx\">Unite member Phil Willis<\/a> had been unlawfully refused employment by CB&amp;I because he is a member of a trade union and a prominent activist. He was awarded \u00a318,375 in damages. The case is directly linked to the seizure in 2009 by the Information Commissioner&#8217;s Office (ICO) of a blacklist run by the Consulting Association. CB&amp;I were subscribers to TCA and used the services of TCA extensively.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Willis submitted an application to CB&amp;I for work as a steel erector on the Isle of Grain project in 2007. Although his application was acknowledged, he was not contacted again. Following the raid by the ICO Mr Willis obtained a copy of his blacklist file which contained information about his trade union activity. He brought his case under section 137 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.morningstaronline.co.uk\/index.php\/news\/content\/view\/full\/97669\">Speaking after the verdict Mr Willis said<\/a>: \u201cWe are beside ourselves with delight. The judgment was absolutely damning against CB&amp;I, so much so that it reduced us to tears. It was such a great victory for us and for all those who will eventually follow in our footsteps.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Unite&#8217;s national officer for construction Tom Hardacre said: \u201cIt is the first successful case against a major construction company but it will not be the last. The union is currently providing legal support to a number of workers who believe they have been blacklisted.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He added: \u201cUnite intends to use the full force of the law to hold firms to account for systematically ruining people&#8217;s livelihoods just because a few brave men were prepared to stand up for the rights of their fellow work colleagues.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Unite assistant general secretary Les Bayliss said: \u201cUnite will be campaigning to strengthen the law on blacklisting to ensure employers do not even contemplate blacklisting trade union members.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Blacklist Support Group welcomed the landmark ruling. It added that the inclusion of \u00a32,000 in the payout for &#8220;aggravated damages&#8221;, specifically related to the company&#8217;s involvement with The Consulting Association blacklist, was a major coup, &#8220;as aggravated damages are very rarely awarded.&#8221;<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A major engineering construction contractor has been found guilty by an employment tribunal of blacklisting a prominent trade unionist. Ashford Employment Tribunal ruled that Unite member Phil Willis had been unlawfully refused employment by CB&amp;I because he is a member of a trade union and a prominent activist. He was awarded \u00a318,375 in damages. The &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/blacklistblog\/2010\/11\/17\/construction-firm-guilty-of-blacklisting\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Construction firm guilty of blacklisting&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7,14],"class_list":["post-440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-blacklist-support-group","tag-unite"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/blacklistblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/blacklistblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/blacklistblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/blacklistblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/blacklistblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/blacklistblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":442,"href":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/blacklistblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440\/revisions\/442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/blacklistblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/blacklistblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/blacklistblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}