Blacklist: is the Employment Tribunal the proper arena?

On Monday 23rd, November, some 30 supporters of the blacklisted building workers and applicants at the next day's Employment Tribunal attended a meeting at the Mechanic's Institute on Manchester's Princess Street. Chaired by Colin Trousdale for the Manchester Campaign Against the Blacklist and Dave Smith for the Blacklist Support Group, it attempted to make people aware of the issues that would be dealt with at the Employment Tribunal's Case Management Meeting on the 24th, November. The barrister for the applicant workers, Nick Tongue, and another solicitor, outlined the probable procedures and legal issues involved. Mr Tongue warned the meeting not to expect the legal profession to bring about social transformation or political change through these cases; social change, he said, could only come about, as ever, through human solidarity and community action via organisations such as trade unions, and recourse to the law was no substitute for this. Asked if the Employment Tribunal was the proper arena to get justice in these blacklist cases, he cautioned against people expecting too much from the civil courts, such as the High Court; judges in the High Court, he said, could be 'conservative' and unsympathetic to trade unionists, as had been shown in some of the decisions of the civil courts in recent times.

The meeting questioned the apparent involvement of AMICUS officials (now part of Unite the Union) in the past enforcement of the blacklist as indicated in The Guardian, last Saturday, by Phil Chamberlain. It was suggested that there should be an internal inquiry into this by Unite the Union. Derek Pattison, President of Tameside TUC, asked about the evidence of the 'blacklist merchant' Ian Kerr's involvement with state intellegence agancies such as MI5. Mick Abbott, an applicant in a Blacklist case and leader of the Campaign for the Shrewsbury Pickets, addressed the meeting and suggested that these two campaigns be linked together.