Green activists' names 'on construction blacklist'

The GMB has called on the Scottish affairs select committee, which is conducting an inquiry into the practice, to investigate why the names of green activists were on the Consulting Association's blacklist.

The Information Commissioners Office raided the association's offices in 2009 and found a database containing more than 3,200 names.

Over 40 major construction firms subscribed to the blacklist which held information on union representatives and, it would now appear, environmental campaigners.

Unions claimed workers' names were included if they had raised health and safety issues or were union activists.

They were then denied future employment.

The GMB yesterday said five female campaigners contacted the union and said that their names were on the blacklist.

The women are from Edinburgh, Leeds, Cornwall, Essex and north-east England and said they had no idea why their names were on the list.

The GMB also said that among the names on the database were those of around 240 women, with no information on whether they were linked to the building industry.

These women were from areas including Manchester, London, Birmingham, Cheltenham, Newcastle, Sheffield, Bristol, Liverpool and north Wales.

GMB legal officer Maria Ludkin said the union had never received a satisfactory explanation from construction firms over what they discussed with the Consulting Association.

"Now we find environmental campaigners on the blacklist. We are asking the Scottish affairs select committee to investigate how these names got on the list."

The select committee has heard evidence from those directly affected by blacklisting as well as unions, construction firms and, shortly before his death last year Consulting Association boss Ian Kerr.

Last month, the GMB published a regional map showing where people on the blacklist lived.

The number of workers on listed ranged from just one in Warwickshire, the Isle of Wight, East Lothian, Northern Ireland, Bath and the Orkney Islands, to 454 in London, 183 in Greater Manchester and 173 in Merseyside.