My Lords, thousands of construction workers have been secretly blacklisted and denied jobs on building projects such as the London Olympics. Individuals branded as troublemakers for being members of a trade union or for raising concerns in the workplace over important issues such as health and safety had their names passed to more than 40 construction firms. In his evidence to the Scottish Affairs Select Committee last month Mr Ian Kerr, who ran the consulting association responsible for gathering the names of thousands of workers, told the committee that he went to radical bookshops and political meetings to gather information, saying:
“I would have had a file on the Socialist Workers Party. I had a file on the National Front. Any organisation that seemed to be jumping up and down about construction, it was my role to keep tabs”.
The committee heard that trade union activity, health and safety concerns or standing up for colleagues was enough to blacklist a worker, leading to work drying up. My colleague, the shadow Business Secretary, Chuka Umunna, has also raised concerns over whether blacklisting is going on for Crossrail, the new £16 billion rail network.
The construction blacklisting scandal exposed in 2009 highlighted a gap in protection for job applicants. At present, if a prospective employer accesses a blacklist or becomes aware of a job applicant’s whistleblowing history and decides not to give them a job on that basis, the applicant would have no course of action. The 2010 blacklisting regulations deal only with lists of individuals who have been involved in trade union activities. The Equality Act provides protection at the point of recruitment and we think it is vital that the right message is sent to employers that discriminating against whistleblowers at this point is unacceptable.
The amendment calls for the Public Interest Disclosure Act to be brought into line with the Equality Act 2010 and to make clear that individuals who blow the whistle will continue to have protection under the law against blacklisting by future employers on grounds that they have raised legitimate concerns over wrongdoing at previous employers. I beg to move.