The news this week that construction firms will compensate blacklisted trade unionists was met with a mixture of scepticism and accomplishment. There is some noteable querying of how and whether firms will measure the degree of harm done as a result of blacklisting, and similarly whether they will incur any additional liabilities as a result of awarding compensation. There is however, some sense of achievement on the release of the news, not least amongst those groups who have led this fight and left the firms and Parliament with no room to view this struggle as one that will be droppped.
The primary campaign organisation here is the Blacklist Support Group and here's the group's comment on the compensation annoucement: http://www.hazards.org/blacklistblog
Hot on the heels of the compensation annoucement comes a call from the TUC for a day of action on blacklisting: http://www.tuc.org.uk//workplace-issues/employment-rights/health-and-safety/own-pay-clean-tuc-day-action-blacklisting
All unions have signed up to this and it includes a lobby of Parliament and a call for a full public inquiry to investigate, for example, collusion between the police and UK intelligence agencies on the gathering of 'information' on trade unionsts and the disclosure of this to firms directly to dubious outfits like the Consulting Association who then sold this information on on a commercial basis.
There are profound civil liberties and human rights issues here, and the Coalition should commit itself to allow an inquiry to unearth the detail and legislate against its reoccurence. Given the complex, close associations between construction firms, property developers and the Conservative Party however, it is highly likely that they will dismiss the call for an inquiry -which in turn makes the demand even more urgent.
Do what you can to support the day of action and keep following/supporting the work of the Blacklisting Support Group.
In Solidarity
Ian
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