The age of official secrets is ending, but the age of transparency is experiencing a difficult birth. States must keep secrets; companies, institutions and citizens too have a right to privacy. But the line between privacy and the public interest is shifting.
We saw it dramatically over Hillsborough, with the agonising revelation of conspiracy and cover-up. We saw it during the MPs’ expenses scandal, and today’s stories about MPs renting homes to each other for personal gain. We see it in the growing clamour for the truth about the predatory appetites of the odious Jimmy Savile, and the people around him who led the children to his room or car, stood guard at the door or looked the other way. We can see reverses too – when the attorney general Dominic Grieve overturns three judges’ decisions which would have allowed access to Prince Charles’s politically ‘outspoken’ letters to ministers.
Partly the spread of sunlight is a by-product of the information revolution, a process of change even more transforming than the industrial revolution. Partly it is a result of the end of deference towards institutions of authority, be they parliament, the police or monarchy.
It is a slow, difficult process, dragging information out of the adamantine breast of officialdom. Sir Humphrey’s definition of freedom of information, you’ll remember, was ‘Freedom of information. We should always tell the press freely and frankly anything that they could easily find out some other way.’
However, the most pernicious secrets do not have to be official. That’s because the people who have power over our lives are not all part of the state. The Financial Times, to its great credit, is reporting on a growing scandal of blacklisting in the construction industry.
The blacklist is an especially nasty form of secrecy. It operates to deny people a livelihood in their chosen trade or profession for perceived trade union activity or general bolshiness. ‘Trade union activity’ might include pointing out lapses in health and safety measures on a construction site, or whistle-blowing on bosses failing to pay the minimum wage. You might find yourself on a blacklist for your political views (like the Hollywood stars in the 1950s), because you rubbed the site manager up the wrong way, or because of the false testimony of an enemy. It might even be a case of mistaken identity, especially if you have one of those tricky foreign surnames.
In 1919, one of Britain’s leading spooks William Reginald Hall started the Economic League. Hall, who had worked against the IRA in 1916 and outwitted German intelligence during the First World War, was elected as a Conservative MP in Liverpool West Derby (today Stephen Twigg’s seat). Later he was MP for Eastbourne, and was widely assumed to be behind the Zinoviev letter. His brainchild the Economic League was an anti-communist blacklisting organisation. Firms subscribed to it, and received secret files on subversives and trouble-makers. Lest you think the Economic League a product of the anti-Bolshevik red scares of the 1920s, or even the Cold War, it ran until 1994. Its files included over 30,000 names of members of CND, unions or left-wing political organisations such as the SWP. One of the directors Stan Hardy went on to be a leading light in the ‘Business for Sterling’ campaign against the euro, as well as the Institute ofDirectors.
There is a titanic scandal about blacklisting in the construction industry about to be blown wide open. In 2009, the Information Commissioner’s Office conducted a raid on an organisation in Droitwich with the innocuous sounding name ‘The Consulting Association’. Bland? Maybe a bit too bland, like Universal Exports. The Consulting Association was a subscription based service for the giants in the construction industry, including some of the biggest names in British building: Balfour Beatty, Carillion, and a subsidiary of Amec.
The raid revealed personal files on 3213 workers in the construction sector, going back 15 years, listing their personal details, car registration, home address, history of trade union activity and involvement in disputes. This was, in effect, a blacklist, allowing construction firms to know personal information about potential employees. Some of the files were marked up that a firm should employ a worker ‘under no circumstances whatsoever’. Of course, the workers named in the files had no idea of their existence, although their persistent denial of work might have raised the alarm.
The GMB union is bringing a case against the building firm Sir Robert McAlpine, which has contracts for the Olympic Stadium and the new M1 between London and Leeds. The Financial Times reports that the firm ‘is accused of having been embroiled in an unlawful conspiracy against workers who it appears may have been targeted as a result of trade union activities or membership.’ If proved, hundreds of workers, many members of GMB and UCATT, might be in line for compensation for loss of earnings as a direct result of blacklisting.
This is a vitally important case, and all credit to those involved in bringing it to court. It is about more than the desperately unfair treatment of a few hundred workers in a tough, dangerous industry. It is not just about their loss of earnings, and the effect on them and their families. More than that, it is about the balance of power between worker and employer, and between citizen and corporation. The blacklists are still with us. Someone, somewhere is holding files on union reps and selling the information on to firms. It is a scandal and it must be ended.
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Paul Richards writes a weekly column for Progress, Paul’s week in politics. He tweets @LabourPaul
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Photo: Josh Self
Well done Paul. Open and well informed as ever.
“ere Doris” “wot Edna “? “good riddance to bad rubbish eh ” “yes indeed my pet,yes indeed “!
My experience of the blacklist might be of interest. In 1974 I was working on a site on the Tower Hamlets side of the Blackwall Tunnel approach in Tower Hamlets, East London building council flats for the then Greater London Council.
Conditions were pretty bad in terms of canteen facilities and toilets but the main concern was the supposed bonus. It was based on the number of bricks laid per week across the job. No matter how many we laid there was never any bonus. I got UCATT in and got myself elected site steward only to get the sack. The UCATT full timers from Clapham HQ were totally unhelpful as I hadn’t been on the site six months and I went.
From there I got a job on the George Green school Job on the Isle of Dogs and lasted two weeks before I was sacked from there as well. This time the foreman bricklayer told me that head office had phoned the job with instructions to sack me as I was on a list as a troublemaker.
Ten years later as the director of a building company, myself and my partner joined an employers organisation mainly for legal assistance and insurance deals. One of the benefits was a check on employees so my partner ran my name and I was still listed as a trouble maker. The advice was to sack me. For all I know I am still on a list somewhere even though as a result of the blacklisting I have been an employer for most of the last forty years.
In terms of UCATT they were, and for all I know are worse than useless. I discovered from other building workers over the years that they were really interested in sweetheart deals with employers to ensure the direct payment of union dues to the extent that even if you weren’t a member of a union when you went to a firm you would find the deduction taken from your wages every week. Full timers have to have their wages paid after all.