by Dr Dave Smith - Blacklist Support Group
The post below is edited extracts taken from my PhD thesis (can be read here),
published in June 2020. Posting them now acts as a contribution to the debate
about the model of trade unionism in the UK construction industry, and is also
a reminder of why the independent investigation into union collusion in
blacklisting is so important.
Appointed convenors
In standard trade union terminology, a convenor is the most
senior union representative in a particular workplace, usually elected directly
by the members or through a vote at the shop-stewards committee. In
construction, this is often no longer the case. Under the guise of working in
partnership, construction unions and employers have agreed a role for union
appointed convenors site who are integrated into the safety apparatus of major
contractors.
According to two academics, (Wright & Brown 2013), key
elements of the role involve a lead position on safety issues, including
carrying out regular safety inspections and site inductions for new staff,
helping to resolve individual grievances, checking workers’ qualifications and
legal right to work in the UK. Either the client or main contractor pay the
convenor’s salary, often in an apparent twin role of senior safety advisor on
the project, plus holding the position of trade union convener. The appointed
convenors do not come from amongst the workers on the site but from a tiny
cohort of full-time convenors who travel from one project to another.
Wright and Brown (2013:21) interviewed union officials about
the appointed convenor system, one UCATT regional secretary explained:
“We make the case to the [lead firm] that the convenor will
help to reduce the risks and costs associated with problems arising and blowing
up”
Another UCATT official described the convenors as
“employment relations problem solvers” explaining that “we have to show the
client how the convenors will add value, because otherwise they won't be
interested” (Wright & Brown 2013:31)
The wage cost for an appointed convenor, whose stated aim is
to stop employment relations problems escalating, is insignificant compared to
a stoppage on an infrastructure project. The appointed convenor system is the
logical extension of the servicing model and partnership approach to union
renewal. Major contractors with a history of hostility to organised labour are
paying for appointed convenors in order to reduce the likelihood of industrial
action on their projects. It is a twin track approach: appointed convenors are
the carrot, blacklisting is the stick.
In fact, many of the senior company executives personally
responsible for the blacklisting of union activists were amongst the most vocal
in their support of the appointed convener system. Stephen Quant, former
Skanska director and chairman of the Consulting Association blacklist claimed
that he had a close relationship with two UCATT regional secretaries (both
later to become national officers) and it became company policy to employ union
appointed convenors on all major sites during his tenure. Quant claimed the
final decision as to who would be appointed was decided after he had
interviewed different candidates,
“It has always been an appointment. I’d just say to
[regional secretary], ‘I would like a convenor steward on this site’ and they
would pop up a couple of people for me to have a chat with and I would pick
one. I would meet them in the office on a formal basis. It was all recorded
because I have got to offer them employment”.
Even for elected convenors, there is a danger that they can
be raised to an elevated position and lose touch with the workers they
represent. Yet, however much senior lay union representatives may become
incorporated into an employer’s industrial relations apparatus, in most
industries they are initially elected by their fellow union members at the workplace.
They can therefore ultimately be deselected and are consequently required to
respond to collective pressure from below. For appointed convenors, the
decision whether to select or deselect them lies with the union hierarchy and
the employer (or the client), assumedly with the same pressures to respond.
Without any real democratic input from the workers on site,
the union is virtually acting as a paid consultancy, providing the employers
with an external expert to sort out the workers’ individual employment and
safety problems. While appointed convenors may benefit the union machinery and
provide assistance to workers with individual grievances, activists were
sceptical about the prospects of building any shared response to collective
issues, their criticism being about the role rather than the individual in the
position. Bricklayer E was particularly pessimistic about the role of appointed
conveners:
“I’m quite depressed by how incorporated into the corporate
structure that UCATT has become. They have been paralysed, look how weak it is
and they have allowed themselves to get like that. A convenor, in their most
optimistic dreams, recruits large numbers of the workforce and then stabilises
the finances of the union by working in partnership. They’re not elected.
There’s very little space where union members can get involved, to become a
safety rep or any meaningful solidarity. I’ve heard some of these convenors
talking about the union providing some peace of mind. Seeing it as a sort of
insurance policy, where people get union representation for an accident, but
they have no idea of a union being something progressive that could change the
way of life for working people”.
There are of course exceptions to the general rule. On
Heathrow Terminal 5, the Amicus ‘designated reps’ ensured that they were
endorsed by holding an on site election and subsequently used their position to
organise collective action. This included a boycott of the site canteen over
food pricing, plus action over excessive unpaid travelling time from the site
entrance to the place of work and new contracts. The consequence was that once
T5 finished, rather than being transferred to another convenor’s position as
was tradition, both activists were blacklisted and suffered long periods of unemployment.
Druker & White’s (2013) study of industrial relations on
the London Olympics identifies that while there were five appointed union
conveners on separate contracts across the entire project, there were only
three additional unions reps elected across the entire life of the mega
construction project. The result was that although full-time officials and
appointed conveners attended occasional forums with the main contractor, there
was no functioning stewards committee at any time during the six year project,
which is in stark contrast to the ‘vibrant’ union organisation during Sydney
Olympics.
A possible reason for the lack of genuine union organisation
was provided when company directors of the contractors that built the Olympic
stadia later admitted to the select committee investigation that the Consulting
Association blacklist was used to vet workers applying for work on the
Olympics. This explanation however is disputed by one of the union officials
from the project who is quoted as describing blacklisting as, “one of the myths
of the site” (Druker & White 2013). Quite why a union official would be
more sceptical about blacklisting than the construction companies that actually
carried it out is an interesting question in itself.
In return for ensuring that workplace grievances do not
escalate into industrial action, the very same employers responsible for
blacklisting granted union’s bulk membership agreements and a union presence on
major projects. Given the nature of employment relations in the sector, the
biggest potential threat of industrial action which causes the employers
residual fear comes from rank and file activism.
The partnership model and union organising are fundamentally
contradictory approaches. Far from being complementary aspects of a
multi-faceted approach, their basic assumptions, aims and methodology are in
opposition to each other. This thesis suggests that it is impossible for both
strategies to run simultaneously against the same employer. Union organising
and attempts at collective mobilisation undermine the efforts of those wishing
to work in partnership with employers, and vice versa. The two strategies
together would either cancel each other out, or more likely the dominant
strategy would extinguish the likelihood of the other taking hold. A top-down
pro-business partnership strategy that involves appointed convenors is
diametrically opposed to a bottom up rank and file organising model in which
unofficial industrial action is a major constituent.
Fundamental disagreement between rank and file activists in
UNITE and the layer of appointed conveners from UCATT has been one of the major
sources of internal conflict since the two unions merged. One activist,
described the dispute as a ‘battle for the future direction of trade unionism
in the construction industry’.
2. Union sources named on blacklist files
• Reported by local EETPU official as militant
• AEEU describes as f. evil as far as internal union
dealings are concerned. Active at branch level
• DO NOT DIVULGE - Above information arose from liaison
between union, contractor and managing agent at J/L [this appears on dozens of
files from the Jubilee Line]
• Information received by site manager at Heathrow T5 that
the above is ‘not recommended’ by Amicus.
• Above is to be a delegate at UCATT Conference [union
official] further commented ‘but people don’t take any notice of him now’
• Above information came from amicus
• EETPU says NO
The entries above are just a selection from where union
sources are recorded on blacklist files. Many of the documents seized by the
ICO when they raided the Consulting Association do not simply name the union
who provided the information, they name individual union officials as the
source of the information. These include regional secretaries, national
officers from various unions and 3 General Secretaries.
‘EETPU says NO’ appears on numerous files and during the
select committee investigation into blacklisting, Ian Davidson MP asked Ian
Kerr whether this suggested input from a trade union. TCA’s Chief Executive
agreed:
“That would have been the case. It would have been a
particular relationship with an HR manager in a particular area and that
regional officer of the union. I don’t know how you want to phrase it, but
somewhere along the line that would have been discussed and somebody would have
decided that that was information that we should have in our system.… The poor
union official had to resolve the two sides. Sometimes he didn’t want an
unnecessary problem, nor did his union."
FOI requests made by activists to various blacklisting firms
as late as 2018, reveal email exchanges between union officials and industrial
relations officers discussing prominent union members. The FOI requests
identified that emails sent by activists to union officials discussing
preparations for industrial action were forwarded to Costain in May 2015 and
after 2016 internal minutes of national and regional construction committees
within UNITE were circulated to senior managers and industrial relations
consultants working for Skanska.
Several industrial relations officers claim that sometimes
information was deliberately passed to them with the intention of keeping
activists off projects. Dudley Barrett, head of industrial relations for
Costain from 1984-1995 claims that union officials knew about the blacklist,
adding that he had ‘good friends’ in the unions,
“who would occasionally tell me names of individuals who
they thought should not be employed on sites... Overall, I gained the
impression that there was a quiet acceptance by certain construction trade
unions of the Services Group / Consulting Association and the ‘benefits’ of the
checking service as such individuals could be disruptive of organised labour”.
A similar practice was also confirmed by Daniel O’Sullivan
from Kier, who claims that because they were keen to prevent disruption on
site: “Occasionally, union officials would give me information concerning a
particular individual”. In the late 1980s, senior union officers even went as
far as attending events organised by the Economic League. Trevor Watcham, TCA
chairman between 2003-2005 recalls how at one such lunchtime event he sat on
the same table as, “Leon Brittan of the Conservative Party (who had been the
main speaker) and Eric Hammond of the electricians’ union together with some
members of his union executive”.
In 1988, during Hammond’s tenure at the EETPU, the
electricians’ union was expelled from the TUC due to single union deals,
poaching of members and openly siding with employers such as during the News
International dispute at Wapping. Many of the more left-wing activists broke
away from EETPU setting up the EPIU, this led to a bitter inter-union battle
over many years and information on some blacklist files identifying EPIU
activists appears to originate from EETPU sources. This animosity was confirmed
by a number of the interviewees, including Official C who accepted that “It was
civil war between AEEU and EPIU… the employers obviously supported the EETPU
and AEEU because they were business friendly”.
Investigation of the primary source data seems to suggest
that in most cases the information on blacklist files attributed to union
sources was not provided intentionally but was gathered by industrial relations
officers during the normal course of formal and informal meetings with
officials. However, there is corroborated evidence of fraternization outside of
usual working hours that would go beyond acceptable behaviour in many public
authorities. This is common knowledge amongst activists who view the practice
with extreme disdain, which only adds to their general sense of mistrust of
many union officials.
When placed in context alongside oral evidence from
blacklisted activists and senior industrial relations officers, the documentary
evidence from blacklist files and FOI disclosures suggest that on some
occasions the proliferation of information may have been more premeditated.
There is a well worn path between officials leaving
employment with a trade union and the very next day taking up a position as an
industrial relations manager or consultant for a major contractor. On some
occasions jumping sides of the negotiating table mid-way through a prolonged
dispute. Whenever a new example of this occurs, it only helps to increase the
general sense of suspicion amongst a section of activists about possible
collusion by union officials in blacklisting their own members.
This is why the independent QC led investigation into
potential union collusion in blacklisting must be allowed to fully complete its
task. And if any officials are criticised in the final written report, relevant
disciplinary action should be taken.
3. Rank and file union organising
In contrast to the top down business friendly approach, the
building site based activist layer developed an alternative approach founded on
rank and file militancy. The itinerant nature of the work and lack of direct
employment status means that the full balloting procedure for industrial action
is all but irrelevant in construction. Therefore, instead of being organised
through the official union structures, the key support network for activists
was more likely to be ad-hoc rank and file groups, which re-emerge in every
generation. Within UK construction, rank and file unofficial militancy has
already achieved significant success on an industry wide basis, especially
notable in the 1972 national building workers strike, during the late 1990s and
the 2012 BESNA dispute [and the ESO action in 2021].
Locating transformative change as primarily a function of
national union leaders shifts the focus of attention onto internal union
structures and processes and away from the workplace. Instead, this thesis
suggests that union renewal in the UK is dependent upon fostering organic rank
and file organising, wherever it springs up.
Workers going from one insecure job to another with little
in the way of employment rights and facing hostility from anti-union employers
is not a particularly new phenomenon: it could easily be an account of
employment relations throughout the nineteenth century. Yet within a few months
in 1888, the TGWU became the most powerful union in the world by mass
mobilisation of precarious workers. The experiences of the blacklisted
activists may set them aside from the majority of union reps in TUC affiliated
trade unions in 2019. But in the era of neo-liberal attacks on organised
labour, this thesis suggests that an understanding of the construction
activists’ rank and file model of union organising may be of value to a labour
movement audience beyond academia.
Edited extracts taken from:
