Blacklist Britain Panorama

Tonight on Panorama. One of British industry's darkest secrets revealed.

There was work, then all of a sudden, nothing. It was not until

the blacklist came out that I found out I was on it.

A secret list, used by some of the UK's biggest construction companies

that denied people work for years. To conspire together, to try to

drive these people out of the industry is outrageous. It should be

the subject of punishment. We have the first television

interview with the woman who helped to run the list - tending the files

that destroyed lives. A lot of these people who didn't

work for years, they were their own worst enemies.

And we talk to those who claimed blacklisting is still going on. That

if you find yourself marked out, you will never work again.

There were times we ran out of food. The cupboards were empty. The Mrs,

she was balling her eyes out. No money to pick the kids up from

school and she was screaming at me, " What have you done? What have you

multibillion pound building industry has been hiding a dark secret. A

covert organisation that built up confidential files on thousands of

workers. What those files amounted to was a

blacklist, with the power to deny people work and destroy livelihoods.

Workers were not told that they were on the list. They just saw their

work stop. You could not beat the blacklist. It

was an overpowering thing, it decided whether you started work on

a site, on a job, anywhere. People think you cannot do your job.

That you are useless, but that is not the case. It is the case that

your national insurance number has been put on a secret database.

The list was paid for by some of the biggest names in the construction

industry. It involves some of Europe's largest projects. The

Olympic site, the London Underground, the Jubilee Line

extension, the Dome and Portcullis House. All money paid for with

public money. The files were kept in a small

office in the West Midlands. Ian Kerr, a former art teacher, and

his wife, Mary, were the consultant Consulting association that compiled

and held the blacklist. Ian Kerr died at the end of last year. His

wife Mary has now agreed to speak about the undercover vetting

service. She has asked we do not show her face.

What was your role for the Consultanting Association? I was the

book-keeper for several years. I did the clerical things, sending out

invoices. Piecing male r mail out. I checked the faxes of names.

It is reasonable to say that you are the person that knowsth most about

what was going on -- knows the most about what was going on there?

the only person alive who knows the truth.

The list emerged out of the disputes of the 197 #0s, and the 1980s.

construction industry were caught out bad ly 1970s. As a result of

that, they were determined to weed out any trouble makers.

The construction companies had always denied the existence of the

list. Yet 43 companies subscribed to, including Skanska, Balfour

Beatty and Sir Robert McAlpine. 3,200 workers were on the list. Only

now are many of their files coming to light.

So this is the first time that I have had a chance to see the files.

What is striking, immediately, it is the level of detail that is

contained within here. This is a lot more than a mere

blacklist. This is detail about people's lives, about the work that

they were doing. This case for example it describes him as being

involved in union activity. You sort of expect that but then says he is a

bit of a sheep. The next file has years of information. Decades. It

goes back to 1982. Other files have registration plates, details of

relationships. This was not just a list. This was a file that covered

people's lives. Many had no idea that they were on

the list. All they had was suspicion and years without work.

I work in the electrical contracting industry. I found out I was

blacklisted, not just with one company but withle whoet industry.

That was devastating. I'm a joiner, and a carpenter. I found out I was

on the blacklist. I have been unemployed for long spells. I'm an

electrician, I always had work, then all of a sudden, nothing.

What was it like when you saw your file and saw what was within it?

First I was a bit shocked to find out I was on it. I was a bit angry.

Once I got the file and I read why I had been blacklisted, then I was

angry and shocked. It was like, where have they got this from? It

was nonsense. According to his file, Howard had

been involved in disputes while working on the extension to the

London Underground Jubilee Line. A project notorious for its problems.

As I looked down I saw the first entry as to why I had been put on

it. It was for working on the Jubilee Line. It is a job I have

never worked on. Everything about that file that

destroyed your life was there in that one page? Yeah, just that one

page, basically. My date of birth, the national insurance number and

that line off the Jubilee Line that basically stopped me working for the

past 15 years. Roy was blacklisted after being'

elected the health and safety steward on a site. He was lible

libled independent. Even accused of benefit fraud.

I looked at the opening pages of your file. It is very personal. It

talks about you as being a sheep, being independent. This is

information that is being circulating about you.

I was mortified. I am a reasonable person by nature, but I found myself

thinking that they had been colluding against me.

And the other thing it makes reference to, is that I was signing

on while I was working, that I was claiming unemployment benefit back

then, but that is totally untrue. It is unsob Stan Secretary of Stated

allegations, again, it makes you realise it is being passed around

over a 14-year period amongst companies.

Mary Kerr still believes that the list was justified.

Unfortunately, there are people in this life who do cause trouble. I

can't say whether every person on that list caused genuine trouble but

certainly I know some of them would have.

What about the idea of placing information on a secret list that

was not checked for accuracy and not verified? How do you feel about

that? Well it should have been accurate.

But nobody was checking, were they? Well, who would check? The

information came from the companies. Frank Matthews had a successful

South career as an electrician and site manager. All that was destroyed

when he was blacklisted. You feel the whole world is against

you. Who can you tell? You can tell your wife and immediate family, but

I had good friends. When they found out, they thought, there was no

smoke without fire. What had he been up to? If somebody tell as lie, how

do you prove that negative? You can't do it.

These people have affected your lives unbelievably so, for no

reason. They need locking up. So how did this covert and unlawful

database operate? Well construction companies had to be invited to join

by an existing member. Each then paid the Consulting

Association, an annual subscription fee for the service and up to �2. 20

for each name that was checked against the list. There would be one

main point of contact at each company, a senior executive from

within human resources. They would feed in information about workers

that they considered to be trouble makers. That information would be

shared across the industry. The worker would never know.

They sent through lists of names to the Consulting Association of

everyone that they were considering employing on the site. To see if

past details of trouble was recorded on a card.

How many names are they pushing through? Thousands.

The Kerrs, checked ame names against card files held by Consulting

Association. If a match was found, the company was alerted.

If you're on this list, what does that mean? If you're on the list

then the HR director or manager of the construction company was

informed by Ian that there were details known about this person. Ian

read out the information that was held, exactly as it had been record

recorded and the HR director or manager would decide whether to

employ or not. It was never up to Ian whether these

people were given work or not. All Ian did was pass on the information

that had been put in by other companies.

And what sort of companies are we talking about? Large construction

companies. Name a few for us.

Laing, Sir Robert McAlpine, AMEC, C B & I. Kier.

These companies, this was meant to be secretive from the beginning,

wasn't it? Oh, yes. Over a four-year period, Skanska

vetted 66,000 names on projects like the Ministry of Defence building in

Whitehall. Balfour Beatty put around 15,000 name as year through the

database. Sir Robert McAlpine spent �220,000 checking workers on sites,

including the Dome. Though it insists it never operated the

blacklist but simply this was to protect the company against unlawful

or dangerous behaviour. From two offices in Droitwich, you

were literally casting your eye over hundreds of workers for some of the

biggest projects in this country? Yeah, I'll give you that, it is

true. The people that built the Dome, they

went through your office? They did. A lot of them weren't even builders.

They put through acrobats, dancers, entertainers, there were hundreds of

them. Anyone who may disrupt the smooth

running of a site, even animal rights activists and

environmentalists, appeared in the files with some intelligence coming

from police and security contacts. Ian Kerr added further detail on

individuals, taken from reports of union meetings and industrial

tribunals. It came from the left-wing,

anarchist press. Ian would read all of those magazines and newspapers

and cutting out anything that looked as if it were something that a

company may be interested in. That was he spent all of his day doing,

reading these papers. The Commons Select Committee on

Scottish Affairs investigate investigated blacklisting earlier in

the year. It discovered that many of those targeted by lists had raised

concerns about unsafe working practises.

What was genuine anxieties but health and safety matters, after

all, it was their lives or health at risk, they were penalised for

protecting themselves and their families. This was about money and

profit. Somebody who was interested in health and safety could delay the

job or incur extra costs. Frank Matthews was working for the

Balfour Beatty group in 2,000. He was sacked after being caught up in

a dispute over unsafe conditions at a pharmaceutical plant in Kent. The

site became water-logged. In the opinion of the electricians on site

it became a safety hazard. The site was flooded. We did not

want to work in the rain in the wet. We had nowhere to dry our clothes,

so they decided to sack everybody. Frank took his employer to an

industrial tribunal and won his case for unfair dismissal. For this he

was blacklisted. They had employed me for 15 years,

giving full responsibility for managing sites, jobs, responsible

for millions of pounds. It did not add up.

Then a trouble maker? No, I'm never a trouble maker.

The blacklist filtered the workforce of an industry for 16 years. How did

it remain secret? Well, chances were missed. In 2006, a whistleblower

handed a dossier of evidence to the Unite union. In 2007, the same

whistleblower gave evidence to the old department of Trade and

Industry. People were told but neither did anything about it. The

DTI has gone are but the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills,

which replaced it, said there was not enough evidence to act on. The

union agreed but said that lessons had been learned.

I don't have the power to turn the clock back. We have changed our

reporting procedures. There is not a single official in the union that is

not aware that if the blacklist flag is raised, there must be immediate

action taken. In fact, the unions face more

serious allegations. That some union officials provided

names and information for the list. When Howard Nolan received his file,

he found the entry that read his career that said: Note but do not

divulge. Resulting from a liaison between the union, the contractor

and the managing ate. The are there to help us out. This

is why I think we need an inquiry into this, to find out who is

involved. To get these people, if they are part of the union, and they

are union reps, that they have to leave the union.

Are you surprised to see it there? It is individuals, isn't it?

Surprised, I think it has gone on for a while, that. Surprise, when

you see it in black and white, how it is written there.

The union, Unite, insists that there is not information on the files to

identify any union officials involved in passing names to the

list. There is a concern in my mind, and

in the union's mind about collusion. We have said and my General

Secretary has committed to an absolute investigation and

appropriate action against anyone that we can find that is complicit

in blacklisting. The list was finally exposed in

2009. The Consulting Association was raided. The Information

Commissioner's office, acted only after the list was revealed in a

national newspaper. Evenian acre was convicted under the Communications

Data Bill, but no action taken against the company, closest to the

company consulting Association, Sir Robert McAlpine.

What Can say is that the person who breached the law, who committed the

criminal offence was Ian acre, not McAlpine it was Ian Kerr that we

prosecuted. He was fined by the court.

It looked like you got the wrong man. A small fish when all of these

big companies were behind them and they were never punished.

We went for the person breaching the Communications Data Bill.

But the Consulting Association was a nonprofit-making trade association,

funded by the construction companies. At the time of the raid,

the chairman of the covert organisation was David Cochrane. He

was also head of human resources for Sir Robert McAlpine.

They didn't want the company name to come out. They advised Ian to take

all the blame, if you don't you won't get support from the

companies. It would abbombshell in the industry.

Should he have been the fall guy? Absolutely not. He was an employee.

What is certain is that when Ian Kerr was fined �5,000, he did not

pay the fine. The deal was if McAlpine's name did

not come out in court that they would pay at the end.

How did they pay? They were not allowed to send Ian the money. It

would have gotten them into a lot of trouble.

So the invoice had to be sent for, I think it was service provided, or

words to that effect. So a fake invoice? Yes. It was just

on plain paper from our eldest daughter.

Ian Kerr was asked to return his contract of employment, it had been

signed by Cullum McAlpine. As a director of the construction

giant, he had been involved in setting up the Consulting

Association. Mr McAlpine was quizzed by the

unusual financial arrangement while giving evidence to the Commons

Select Committee on Scottish Affairs on blacklisting earlier in the year.

Can I clarify whether or not you were aware there, why the two

invoices for the fine and the legal costs to cover Mr Kerr's Crown Court

case were paid to Mr Kerr's daughters? I didn't know that. I

have been informed that was at Mr Kerr's request.

OK. Liar!I don't want interruptions from the public gallery. We will

have other witnesses. The instruction was to send an invoice

from the daughters for services provided, were you aware of that?

That was why the money was paid out. Sir Robert McAlpine told you he was

hands off when it came to the running of the Consulting

Association, what do you think? believe that I think it is

impossible to have a situation where somebody involved in setting this

up, did not also drive the policy forwards.

So, Sir Robert McAlpine paid Ian Kerr's fine. The Information

Commissioner's office issued 14 enforcement notices against some of

the construction companies who subscribed to the list but not Sir

Robert McAlpine. The companies themselves seemed to

have gotten off Scot free. They were party to the list. They supplied

data, they took the data out but they have never been punished.

Do you have the powers to work on this? I'm not sure that anybody had

the powers. Sir Robert McAlpine, Balfour Beatty

and Skanska, say that robust procedures are in place to ensure

full compliance with the Communications Data Bill. Balfour

Beatty and Skanska have apologised for their involvement with the

Consulting Association. So now we know about the list, where

does that leave construction workers today? Well in 2010, new laws were

introduced but the critics say that they are too weak as they don't make

blacklisting a criminal offence. The Government thinks that they don't

need toughening up as the problem itself has died away. The Commons

Select Committee on Scottish Affairs is less certain. It announced a

fresh inquiry into whether blacklisting is still going on.

This concern is shared by the union, Unite. Well, there is evidence that

blacklisting is a contemporary problem. Whilst I think it is

unlikely that the industry would set up an organisation like the

Consulting Association again, there is evidence that people are still

active and busy vetting and comparing names to lists that they

hold. This man, Frank Morris, believes

that blacklisting is happening now. That he is a victim.

My employment prospects have gone from very good, always in work, to

zero, nearly overnight. In 2012, he was working for a

subcontractor on the �15 billion London Crossrail link. Europe's

largest construction project. Frank says within weeks of starting

the work, he was identified as a union man and marked out.

So he asked to back union safety rep.

I said I would like to become a shop steward. It was not to cause

problems but they could not sack a shop steward. I could keep working.

But Frank says when he raised health and safety concerns, managers were

so determined to remove him from the site that it terminated his worker's

contract. Frank and 26 others lost their jobs. Panorama has tracked

down a man who worked alongside of Frank on the site. He does not want

to appear on camera but says he firmly believes that Frank was

singled out as he was on a blacklist. He due believes that the

contract was withdrawn to get rid of Frank. Since then, Frank has found

it impossible to find work. I have not been able to get any job

in the construction industry. Do you believe you are on the

blacklist? Yeah. With no money coming in, there was

difficulty in life. We had no money to pick the kids up

from school. The Mrs Is crying her eyes out. Screaming at me, what have

you done it breaks your family. Crossrail told us it denies what it

says are unsubstantiated allegations made by Frank Morris. It said it had

seen no evidence of blackdies listing of any kind with contractors

involved in the Crossrail project. As Frank Morris is suing a claim for

unfair dismissal, the companies involved say that they cannot

comment further if blackdies listing is alive, why are not the

authorities seeking it out? difficulty is not covering under

ground operations. We need a power of audit, to just go in, check on a

business, to ensure that they are complying with the law.

The Information Commissioner's office has asked the government for

additional powers but the change is not imminent. It is four years since

the Consulting Association secret's blacklist was exposed but how much

has change?ed 60% of the HR officers who put the names of workers on the

list are in the same jobs, still no construction company has been

punished. Do you regret? Absolutely I regret. I think it probably killed

Ian. All of the stress from it. If anyone was kept out of work as a

result of that list, I would be truly sorry.

For the blacklisted workers, still no compensation for the livelihoods

ruined, though a legal claim is underway. For many the struggle for

works is going on. It will never two away. I have never

26 years. I retire at 656789 so I have another 26 years of being

blacklisted. Until something happens, it will carry on. But for

now, no-one seems willing to take on an industry that the Government is

relying on to drive economic recovery.