Blacklist Report Clears Unite Officers

Gail Cartmail: 'No evidence of collusion by Union Officers'

THE Report and investigation into 'alleged Officer collusion in Blacklisting in the construction sector' conducted by an Assistant General Secretary of Unite, Gail Cartmail, has concluded that: 'Despite considerable effort I have not discovered evidence against officers' of the union. She writes that while 'I accept that this may disappoint some activists, who are justifiably angry and who have suffered ... great injustice arising from Blacklisting', she urges that 'workers officials of the union are also entitled to dignity at work and in the absence of any proof I trust that such allegation of collusion (in Blacklisting) will now desist.'

Gail Cartmail in her section entitled 'Alleged collusion by union officials' seems to place great stress on the allegations of one man Mr. James Simms, who was a former employee of a predecessor union and has since been employed by Beaver Management Services Ltd and has claimed to have a 'CD-ROM with the names of union officers on it complicit in the Blacklisting of members'. Gail Cartmail reports that 'Mr. Simms did not offer a CD-ROM ...' and described her investigation with Mr. Simms as though she was extracting teeth; she concludes that in his behaviour with her he 'obviously demonstrated a far more cautious approach to disclosure than that apparently promised to activists in the industry.'

Despite this, the report clearly shows that much is left unanswered. Reports of the goings-on at a London Contracting Branch meeting in September 2007, was found in the Blacklist file of one militant and it was noted that several union officials had been present at the meeting. An application to the ICO for full disclosure of the 'Blacklisting' Consulting Association's files by UCATT under the Freedom of Information Act had been turned down, but this is now subject to an appeal. This report did not investigate the earlier allegations by the whistle-blower Alan Wainwright, and his attempts to warn senior officers in Amicus of what was going on.

In all these circumstances the wish of Gail Cartmail that she hopes 'that such allegations of collusion will now desist' is unlikely to be heeded by anyone but the most gullible, if only because despite her best efforts this matter has been allowed to fester too long.