DELEGATES at the TUC conference in Brighton yesterday voted unanimously for Composite Motion 16, Blacklisting and Undercover Surveillance of Trade Unionists.
The motion calls on the TUC General Council to campaign for a ‘full independent public inquiry into blacklisting’ and to ‘ensure that the inquiry being led by Lord Justice Pitchford into undercover policing at the SDS (Special Demonstration Squad) fully investigates the links between the police and blacklisting’.
It also calls ‘on the European parliament to ensure both the EU Data Protection Regulation and the EU Health and Safety Strategy 2014-2020 explicitly banning blacklisting of workers for their trade union and health and safety activities’.
Moving the motion, Billy Parry of UCATT, declared: ‘My working life was ruined because I was blacklisted. My crime was I raised health and safety issues. It wasn’t just me who suffered it was also my family.’
He added: ‘Comrades we will win justice in the High Court case next year and the blacklisters will be held to account.’ He stressed: ‘Financial compensation is one thing, but I and the other victims of blacklisting deserve the truth about who was behind the blacklisting. Six-and-a-half years since the blacklist was discovered, we are still uncovering new information.
‘Earlier this year my union UCATT revealed how a member of the Metropolitan Police’s Special Demonstration Squad, Mark Jenner, infiltrated UCATT in the 1990s under the name Mark Cassidy. He spied on union members who were undertaking lawful campaigns and protests and what makes this so sinister is that information on trade unionists was not just going on police files, it was going on the blacklisters’ files.
‘We are still learning about the links between the police and the blacklisters, but we do know that shortly before the Consulting Association was raided the blacklisting construction bosses were briefed by another section of the Met Police, on threats to the industry. Could these “threats” possibly have meant unions fighting for the rights of workers,’ he asked.
He continued: ‘We don’t know because the police have blocked every request for information on grounds of national security.’ He went on to say: ‘UCATT are not alone in being victims of police spying.
‘Peter Francis, a former member of the SDS-turned whistleblower, has revealed that he spied on members of the CWU, NUT, FBU, the National Union of Students and other construction unions.’ Coming to a conclusion, he said: ‘Congress, the government has finally launched an inquiry into the activities of the SDS, an organisation completely out of control.
‘The activities of its officers were appalling.’ He concluded: ‘It is vital the TUC puts the pressure it can on the Pitchford Inquiry to fully investigate the police role in blacklisting and spying on trade unionists. We need a full public inquiry into the blacklisting of construction workers to get the full truth behind the involvement of the companies, the police, the security services and the government.’
