Gordon Brown pledges urgent review of blacklisting

Gordon Brown today said the Government will urgently review whether to outlaw blacklisting after allegations of its widespread practice in construction.
Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions ahead of the Budget, Brown said: “I am very concerned by the evidence that has been uncovered by the information commissioner. Given there is new evidence suggesting its emergence, we are looking urgently at what we can do.”

The Government previously reviewed blacklisting in 1999 and 2003 after concerns were raise by the construction unions, but argued blacklisting was not a widespread problem.

In March more than 40 construction firms were reported to have been buying confidential data on workers from a body called The Consulting Association (TCA) in secret for the past 15 years.

Many of the companies are alleged to have used the information for blacklisting of workers.The association secretly listed more than 3,300 individuals and kept more detailed information on 1,600 of them.

Michael Clapham MP, the chair of the UCATT parliamentary group, who posed the question to Gordon Brown tabled an Early Day Motion at the time demanding that the laws on blacklisting, already in place, should be implemented immediately.
The 1999 Employment Relations Act included provisions to make blacklisting illegal. But these provisions have never been enacted into law.