Anti-blacklisters win two major battles

Workers Frank Morris and Dave Smith, both of whom claim they've been blacklisted, won seperate rulings at employment tribunals.

Electrician Mr Morris says he was dismissed by Bam Ferrovial Kier, the consortium building the Crossrail project, after raising safety concerns at the Paddington site in September 2012.

An employment judge agreed that Crossrail and BFK should appear in court over Mr Morris's claim that his sacking was linked to the illegal blacklist run by the Consulting Assocation.

Crossrail strenuously denies the allegations.

Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said the union fully backed the electrician from Enfield.

"Too many construction workers have had their lives ruined just because they had concerns over health and safety in one of Britain's most dangerous industries or just because they belonged to a trade union," he said.

And at an employment appeal tribunal on Tuesday Essex-based engineer Mr Smith won the right to take his blacklisting claims to a High Court judge.

A previous tribunal threw out his allegations that he'd been repeatedly dismissed and refused work after raising health and safety concerns on Carillion sites because he wasn't directly employed by the group.

The January 2012 ruling said he'd suffered a "genuine injustice," but was hired by an employment agency. 

Mr Smith said that decision breaches human rights legislation.

"Blacklisted workers have always argued that we have been the victims of a major human rights conspiracy," he said.

"It's time that Carillion and the other multinationals who deliberately set out to ruin our working lives face justice."

A Carillion spokeswoman said the firm did not acknowledge any responsibility for Mr Smith as he'd never been employed by Carillion or any of its associated companies and the claims were more than a decade old.

"Carillion does not engage in or condone blacklisting and has been totally open about its past use of referencing services through a subsidiary Crown House, which ended years before blacklisting was made illegal," she added.