CROSSRAIL AND THE BLACKLIST



Crossrail is Europe's biggest transport project; as an infrastructure project it is bigger than the Olympics. The project is also at the centre of a major blacklisting operation, directed against workers involved in legitimate trade union activities and/or expressing health and safety concerns respecting the Crossrail site. The whole management of the project has been characterised by anti-union bias, which I for one believe is part of a much wider campaign to break the involvement of the trade union movement in the construction industry. Such blacklisting has a history as old as the trade union movement itself, however as recently as 2009 the Information Commissioner uncovered a shadowy organisation going under the name of The Consulting Association[CA][1] supported by the construction industry. This organisation was run by an extremely unsavoury character by the name of Ian Kerr who has form in the business of blacklisting and defaming workers, having previously done the same kind of work for the right wing Economic League. The CA was engaged in the compilation of illegal blacklists of employees and wrecked countless lives.

In the subsequent Industrial Tribunal On February 23, 2009, the company's office was raided by the Office of the Information Commissioner, which served an enforcement notice[5] under the terms of the Data Protection Act. The ICO’s states its action followed an 28 June 2008 Guardian article, Enemy at the Gates.[1] The OIC disclosed that 3213 workers' details were held by the company.[2]

The CA was wound up in 2009, however Crossrail’s HR Director Ron Barron was heavily involved in the CA’s blacklisting activities, an employment tribunal found that he introduced the use of the blacklist at his former employer, the construction firm CB&I, and referred to it more than 900 times in 2007 alone.
Crossrail have stated that Barron stopped working on the project in November this year. The Crossrail consortium BFK have however adopted a novel approach to tackling the engagement of union members on the project, they now simply terminate the contracts of unionised sub contractors and have terminated the contract of EIS mid term, even though 3 years remained on the contract, after the Unite health and safety Representative and Shop steward raised health and safety concerns.

This project is funded by you, the taxpayer so you are paying for employers who are blacklisting workers who express health and safety concerns, which is incidentally the duty of any responsible employee. Accidents on such contracts, which involve the highly dangerous work of boring tunnels deep underground, do not just threaten the lives of employees they also threaten the lives of members of the public.


Protest against this state of affairs by contacting helpdesk@crossrail.co.uk

Picket at Westbourne Park Station
See more on the dispute at Youtube and visit the Unite website:-http://www.unitetheunion.org/news/crossrailblacklistingprobecalledfor/

See Also:-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/dec/02/crossrail-blacklisting-scandal

Donations to the hardship fund: Cheques should be made payable to joint sites committee and sent to: 70 Darney Rise, Chelmsford CM1 4XA


[1] Companies using the Consulting Association
·                    AMEC (Amec Building Ltd, Amec Construction Ltd, Amec Facilities Ltd, Amec Ind Div, Amec Process & Energy Ltd),
·                    Amey Construction – Ex Member,
·                    B Sunley & Sons – Ex Member,
·                    Balfour Beatty,
·                    Balfour Kilpatrick,
·                    Ballast (Wiltshire) PLC – Ex Member,
·                    BAM Construction (HBC Construction), BAM Nuttall (Edmund Nutall Ltd),
·                    C B & I,
·                    Cleveland Bridge UK Ltd,
·                    Costain UK Ltd
·                    Crown House Technologies (Carillion/Tarmac Const),
·                    Dudley Bower & Co Ltd – Ex Member,
·                    Emcor (Drake & Scull) - ‘Ex Ref’, Emcor Rail,
·                    G Wimpey Ltd – Ex Member,
·                    Haden Young,
·                    Kier Ltd,
·                    John Mowlem Ltd - Ex Member,
·                    Laing O'Rourke (Laing Ltd),
·                    Lovell Construction (UK) Ltd – Ex Member,
·                    Miller Construction Limited – Ex Member,
·                    Morgan Ashurst, Morgan Est
·                    Morrison Construction Group - Ex Member,
·                    N G Bailey,
·                    Shepherd Engineering Services,
·                    Siac Building Services,
·                    Sir Robert McAlpine,
·                    Skanska (Kaverna/Trafalgar House Plc),
·                    SPIE (Matthew Hall) - Ex Member,
·                    Taylor Woodrow Construction Ltd – Ex Member,
·                    Turriff Construction Ltd – Ex Member,
·                    Tysons Contractors – Ex Member,
·                    Walter Llewellyn & Sons Ltd - Ex Member,
·                    Whessoe Oil & Gas Willmott Dixon – Ex Member,
·                    Vinci PLC (Norwest Holst Group)

[2] Wikepedia The relative inaction of The Information Commissioner respecting this matter has led to the civil liiberties organisation Liberty threaten to take legal action.






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