Droitwich firm in construction industry blacklisting scandal
The Government has been urged to take immediate action to outlaw the blacklisting of workers after new evidence involving a Droitwich-based firm found that the practice is "rampant".
Unions and MPs have expressed alarm after an investigation by the Information Commissioner revealed that major construction firms broke data protection laws by paying for information on their employees.
Deputy information commissioner David Smith said information on around 3,000 workers was held by the Consulting Association in paper files and a card index database.
Around 40 construction companies would send the association lists of people they were considering hiring to work on building sites and would then receive details from their files over the phone, he said.
Notes about individual workers included descriptions such as "ex-shop steward, definite problems", "Irish ex-Army, bad egg", while others related to workers who had raised concerns over health and safety issues on sites, such as asbestos removal.
Mr Smith said the companies - including household names and major players in the industry - must have known that what they were doing was wrong.
Alan Ritchie, general secretary of the building workers' union Ucatt, said: "Ucatt members know from bitter experience of being refused work that blacklisting exists in construction.
"However, the extent of the practice and the fact that most of the major companies in construction are involved in the practice is truly shocking.
"It is outrageous that construction workers have been barred from jobs simply for being trade unionists."
Ucatt said it believed Consulting Association was run by an individual formerly employed by the Economic League, the company involved in most of the blacklisting in the 1970s and 1980s.
