private sector

Greater Manchester Hazards Centre and Families Against Corporate Killers statement on the death of Cameron Minshull, 16, at an engineering company in Bury, Thursday 10th January 2013.

WE are so very sad for Cameron Minshull, who was only 16 years old when he was killed at an engineering company in Bury, where he had worked as an apprentice for only a matter of weeks. We would like to send our condolences to his family who are naturally devastated.

Blacklist Support Group statement on the death of chief blacklister Ian Kerr.

Ian Kerr, chief executive of the Consulting Association and full-time blacklister of trade unionists and environmental activists since 1969, when he started work for the infamous Economic League died on Tuesday.

His £50,000 a year salary + bonus + BUPA + Mercedes company car lifestyle, funded by the major UK construction firms including Sir Robert McAlpine, Balfour Beatty, Skanska, Carillion, Kier, BAM, AMEC and AMEY came to a halt when the illegal conspiracy was closed down in 2009.

At a recent appearance at the Scottish Affairs Select Committee investigation into blacklisting, he remained totally unrepentant about decades of victimising safety reps in the building industry. Kerr was supposed to have supplied an additional witness statement to the inquiry naming names of senior company Directors who were the ring leaders of the human rights abuse. 

It is a disgrace that public funds are being spent on blacklisting trade unionists on the Crossrail project. 

Workers have been dismissed from the largest construction project in Europe for raising safety concerns about high voltage cables and for joining the UNITE union. For nearly 3 months there have been daily protests about blacklisting on Crossrail and the firms involved have constantly denied that it is taking place.

On Tuesday Ian Kerr, chief officer of the Consulting Association blacklisting organisation told MPs that his members had talked at length about Crossrail during meetings to discuss the list: "An awful lot of discussion took place at Consulting Association meetings about the Crossrail project.'

A SolFed member who has worked as an electrician since the late 1970s shares his experience of the electric supply industry, privatisation and trade unions.

I started an apprenticeship at 16 from school in the local electric company. It was then a nationalised industry and everyone was in one of the recognised (by the company) trade unions (a closed shop). There were many different departments and staff could move between them as workload dictated. As an apprentice I spent time in each department to give me experience of each and to hopefully decide in which one I would ultimately stay.

There were problems with management as in all workplaces (still very much us and them), there was also a great divide between office staff and the industrial staff (we never mixed). I think that was due to the fact that they (the office staff) would work as normal when we were in dispute and their wages and pensions were far more generous.

A private sector worker and SolFed member speaks out about why they have joined in the resistance against privatising public services - and argues for the struggle to spread to the private sector itself.

Originally written for the Oxford Save Our Services blog.

There has been much praise heaped upon the private sector recently. Successive governments have argued that opening up public services to the private markets is a good thing. The private sector is more efficient, more dynamic and more flexible than the old-fashioned public sector, they say. The one thing all this praise of the private sector has in common, however, is that it all comes from people at the top. From the businessmen and their friends in parliament. You'll not hear much praise from someone like me. After all, I'm just the person who makes them their money.

Trade unionists and anti-blacklisting campaigners have criticised the awarding of a top health and safety honour to the construction firm Balfour Beatty.

The company was recently awarded the Royal Society for the Protection of Accident's most prestigious award at this years Occupational Health and Safety Awards.

Steve Kelly, spokesperson for the Blacklist Support Group, described the award as "offensive".

He commented: "At first I thought this was a joke. Balfour Beatty are the construction company with the WORST record of sacking and blacklisting Safety Representatives in the entire industry."

Blacklisted is a must-see short film about the victimisation of trade unionists in the UK construction industry and the workers fight for justice. Watch it (below) and spread the word.

View the Blacklist blog here.

The Tricia Jennings Dispute

This dispute arose after the Ardbride strike, and once again was initially publicised by Edinburgh DAM. It also reached a successful conclusion, unlike the one we’d put so much effort into supporting over the previous year.

In September 1987, Tricia Jennings, a worker at Burton’s in Edinburgh, became pregnant and a few days later was rushed to hospital with a threatened miscarriage. She informed her employer about her situation and at first they seemed sympathetic. Tricia spent the next 6 weeks fighting to save her baby, but when she returned to work on 9th November she found she’d been sacked. Everyone else in the ship knew 2 weeks before Tricia did. No reason was given, though subsequently Burton’s tried to claim she was sacked for “absenteeism” or because her work was “below standard”. However, Tricia had had a certificate for the absence and had passed her six month probation.