UK police helped blacklist "leftwing or troublesome" construction workers

[bricolage]

The police or security services supplied information to a blacklist funded by the country's major construction firms that has kept thousands of people out of work over the past three decades.http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/mar/03/police-blacklist-link-construction-workers

[ComradeOm]

Evidence has recently appeared that demonstrates that either UK police or MI5 supplied information to construction firms on employees deemed "leftwing or troublesome". This then allowed the construction industry to effectively blacklist thousands of workers. Unsurprising


The police or security services supplied information to a blacklist funded by the country's major construction firms that has kept thousands of people out of work over the past three decades.

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has revealed that records that could only have come from the police or MI5 have been discovered in a vast database of files held on 3,200 victims who were deemed leftwing or troublesome.

The files were collected by the Consulting Association, a clandestine organisation funded by major names in the construction industry.

Its database was seized nearly three years ago, but the extraordinary nature of the information held has only now emerged, following an employment tribunal for one of the victims, Dave Smith, a 46-year-old engineer who had a 36-page file against his name and was victimised repeatedly for highlighting safety hazards on sites, including the presence of asbestos.

David Clancy, investigations manager at the ICO, told the central London tribunal adjudicating on Smith's claims against construction giant Carillion that "there is information on the Consulting Association files that I believe could only be supplied by the police or the security services".

Speaking to the Observer, Clancy added: "The information was so specific and it contained in effect operational information that wouldn't have formed anything other than a police record."Full story here (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/mar/03/police-blacklist-link-construction-workers)

[TheGodlessUtopian]

This happens everyday, not really much new to discuss; ever since the inception of the Marxist movement the bourgeoisie have compiled lists of those workers who might be "troublesome."

[bricolage]

I think we started our threads at exactly the same time.

[Ocean Seal]

To protect and serve.
To throw workers to the jaws of their bosses.
Ah I misunderstood what they meant when they said protect and serve.
To protect private property, and serve the bosses.

[PhoenixAsh]

merged the two threads about this topic.

[brigadista]

they have been doing this for years

[Questionable]

I know it's obvious, but I'll say it anyway; absolutely disgusting.

[Left Leanings]

The police are lackeys, employed to do the bidding of the rich and powerful, and protect their pot of gold from the workers (who created it in the first place). A good example would be during the British Miners' Strike of the 1980s. Here the police were most definitely deployed as a political weapon and strikeforce, to smash the men and women, who were campaigning and protesting to prevent their livelihoods being taken away.

[DaringMehring]

A friend of mine, in discussing this matter:

note also the result so far of "legal" remedy to this case:
the plaintiff lost his case for compensation for lost income, because.... he was employed through an agency instead of the company officially calling him an employee.
the "consulting agency" was closed down-- but none of the corporations responsible for creating it sustained any punishment. and one random guy got a 5000 pound fine.
and as far as this article goes, nobody at the helm of the police force has been sacked for spying on the public and then giving that information to corporations so that they can tyrannize the population more effectively.