Blacklisting: admissions & an apology, but the fight goes on

Abstract

the multinational firms who orchestrated the human rights scandal forced to give evidence under oath. BSG want full public disclosure of the documentary evidence that the companies have kept hidden for decades. At a 2-day hearing from 7-8 December, the Court heard legal argument over the use of expert witnesses for calculating loss of earnings. John Hendy QC told the court that the estimated total damages for the 600 claimants is in the region of £60-70million, made up of £40m in loss of earnings and £20-30m in general damages (defamation, human rights, hurt to feelings etc..). Lawyers on behalf of blacklisted workers had applied to use the expertise of Dr Victoria Wass from Cardiff Business School, one of the leading labour market economists in the UK who has acted as an expert witness in numerous high profile cases in the past. The firms argued against the use of Dr. Wass, arguing that the ‘regression analysis’ that she was using was ‘too complicated’ and could not be fully understood by the court (even though virtually every university student in the world is taught regression analysis as a standard statistical tool nowadays). Dr Wass is able to provide a high level of precision in her estimates of loss because she has restricted access to micro data from the Office of National Statistics labour market database. Without an ounce of irony, lawyers for the blacklisting companies, told the court that having access to the ONS personal sensitive information could potentially be a breach of human rights and data protection! In the end, Lord Supperstone and Master Leslie refused the claimants submission - once again we find judges making findings in favour of big business and against the interests of the blacklisted workers. This may be a minor setback in a small skirmish but we are still going to win the war. The next provisional hearing date is 1 February 2016, and then the full trial is set to start in May 2016 and will last 10 weeks. The Blacklist Support Group would like to publicly thank the various legal teams for all the hard work they have carried out on our behalf over many years its very much appreciated. John McDonnell, Shadow Chancellor was the keynote speaker at a packed Blacklist Support Group parliamentary meeting in Westminster on Monday 7th. McDonnell described blacklisting as “a deliberate attempt to undermine trade unions by victimising a layer of activists they could not buy off”. He said that “Tony Benn, Jeremy Corbyn and myself put in amendments to legislation on the issue of blacklisting over a period of decades” but lamented that ‘“no government took any notice”. He added “we are currently drawing up advice for Labour councils over public procurement regardAfter six years of denying everything the eight companies finally admitted their role in the blacklisting scandal INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 24 Volume 22 Issue 4 2015 DAVE SMITH is Secretary of the Blacklist Support Group and a TUC tutor, and is currently undertaking research at the University of the West of England in Bristol A fter six years of denying everything the eight companies being sued in a major High Court action for blacklisting revised their legal defence, finally admitting their role in the blacklisting scandal. The High Court claims brought by 571 blacklisted workers and scheduled for hearing in 2016 will now no longer need to hear arguments over the contractors’ liability: it is admitted that the 571 have a proper claim and so the argument now revolves around causation and loss: proving the links between being blacklisted , subsequent employment experience, and financial loss. The companies’ joint statement is reproduced below: A ‘full and unreserved apology’ ‘On 7 October 2015 we, the eight companies that comprise the Macfarlanes Defendants*, submitted a ReAmended Generic Defence to the Court. In this document we lay out clearly a number of admissions; these admissions are also covered in the accompanying summary which, we hope, will provide interested parties with an easily accessible reference. Both documents contain a full and unreserved apology for our part in a vetting information system run in the construction industry first through the Economic League and subsequently through The Consulting...