Tuesday 23 October 2012

Blacklist Support Committee latest report:

1. Scottish Affairs Select Committee & parliament: 
the Information Commissioner's Office gave evidence at the Select Committee on Tuesday and under questioning from MPs admitted that they had only seized 5-10% of the documents held by the Consulting Association. This obviously opens up the spectre of many thousands more workers actually being blacklisted and the documents still being in circulation.
Listen to a recording of the committee evidence.

More MPs are beginning to take an interest following the TUC call for a Public Inquiry and hopefully the case will soon be raised on the floor of the House of Commons. 

2. High Court claim: 
The full unredacted blacklist database has now been released to Guney Clark & Ryan solicitors as part of the High Court claim in conjunction with the Blacklist Support Group. Individual managers who supplied information can now be identified from across the 44 construction firms who participated in blacklisting.

The Blacklist Support group are making an appeal to managers who participated in blacklisting to salve their conscience, come forward and give witness statements which will expose the truth of how the Consulting Association worked. The alternative may be that people eventually end up being 'outed' in court.

3. Recent press coverage: 
Financial Times http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ee37d03c-1948-11e2-9b3e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz29jQ3yEUg 

Mirror http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/information-commissioners-office-60000-blacklisted-1384925
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/125122

4. Crossrail dispute:
the dispute over the dismissal of 28 UNITE members and the blacklisting of their reps on the Crossrail project is now in its 5th week. There is a daily picketline at Westbourne Park crossrail project and there have been flashmob protests at other Crossrail sites including Tottehnahm Court Road and Moorgate.

The union is asking people to protest by emailing the employers at helpdesk@crossrail.co.uk.
to contribute to the EIS hardship fund, make cheques payable to:
‘Joint Sites Committee’, send to: 70 Darnay Rise Chelmsford CM1 4XA.
5. Fiddlers Ferry
Steve Acheson is approaching his 4th year at Fiddlers Ferry.We need a big turn-out when the anniversary arrives and branches should consider making a donation.
"Fiddlers Ferry Hardship Fund",
c/o 13 Thompson Close,
Dane Bank,
Denton,
Manchester.
M34 2PQ
or via bank transfer:
sort code: 07 00 93
Account number: 33333334
Acc # ref: 0712/703758789

6. Carillion -GMB - contracts:
The rumours floating around the construction industry are that Carillion has lost a number of major public sector funded projects including in Liverpool and possiblyin Birmingham because of the report produced by GMB about Carillion's role in blacklisting.

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