The Economic League, The Consulting Association, and Worker Blacklisting
January 17, 2013 8:02 AM   Subscribe

The Economic League and the Consulting Association blacklisted workers and sold the information to employers [Socialist Worker link].
"Police held regular meetings with senior members of the blacklisting operation with information flowing both ways"
"Union officials provided information about their own members that ended up on the blacklist files. Ian Davidson MP described this as "the union putting the kybosh on someones employment""
"Kerr and other blacklist spies were sent undercover into union meetings"

Detailed history of the Economic League.


Wikipedia on Consulting Association


Guardian - Man behind illegal blacklist snooped on workers for 30 years.


More from the Guardian


Information Commissioners Office - "The ICO found that Kerr, on behalf of The Consulting Association, held details on 3,213 construction workers and traded their personal details for profit. Kerr’s database was used by over 40 construction companies and included information about construction workers’ personal relationships, trade union activity and employment history."

Ian Kerr, who ran the blacklist, died recently.
posted by marienbad (4 comments total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
The reason it took so long for police to track him down was that his real name wasn't Ian, apparently. It was Wayne.
posted by MuffinMan at 8:05 AM on January 17, 2013 [1 favorite]


Two quick points:

1) I was shocked to hear this was going on in roughly the present day; sounds like a story from long ago; buuuuuuuut

2) Trade in information of this kind will be impossible to regulate soon.
posted by grobstein at 8:40 AM on January 17, 2013


Nasty cowardly little sneaks.
posted by saulgoodman at 10:56 AM on January 17, 2013


"Trade union officials helped to blacklist their own members from working on some of the most prestigious construction projects of the past 20 years, The Times has learnt.

The names and personal details of workers deemed “perennial troublemakers” by unions including Ucatt, the construction union, and Amicus, now part of Unite, were fed to a database run by a secretive vetting company set up and financed by several of Britain’s biggest builders." [Source, via The Times]
posted by MuffinMan at 3:12 AM on January 25, 2013


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