Derek Pattison, the joint-editor of Northern Voices, wrote
the comment above earlier this month in response to an appeal from the
whistle-blower and former costruction industry boss, Alan Wainwright in a
legal case against Balfour Beatty. Derek, in his account below, was
clearly anxious to show that there is much that is complicated in the
affairs of men and women: the line between morality and expediency may
well be a fine one. It is now worth reminding ourselves by re-reading what the journalist Rob
Evans had to say in The Guardian on Friday the 15th, May 2009:
Alan Wainwright: The lonely life of a construction industry whistleblower
by Rob Evans Friday 15 May 2009 01.00 BST
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Blacklist
whistleblower, Alan Wainwright. Photograph: Christopher Thomond
How former manager exposed how workers were being secretly blacklisted.
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ALAN WAINWRIGHT is a whistleblower who appears to have had a
significant hand in changing government policy. The one-time
construction manager used his inside knowledge to expose the clandestine
use by companies of blacklisting that has prevented trade unionists and
alleged "troublemakers" getting jobs.
By going public, he set off a chain of events which resulted, on
Monday, in an announcement from the business secretary, Lord Mandelson,
that the government was finally going to outlaw covert blacklists.
Mandelson had been forced to act after a watchdog closed down a private
investigator allegedly at the heart of blacklisting in the construction
industry. Wainwright played a key role in helping to unmask the
investigator, who is due to be prosecuted for breaking the data
protection act on 27 May. This week he is pleased, but keen to stress
that others, including trade unionists and politicians, deserve the
credit as well.
He has trodden the familiar path of a whistleblower – battling for a
long time in obscurity while being ignored by those in power: "It was
demoralising not to be believed." Like other whistleblowers, he suffered
for going public – losing his job, having no income, using up all his
savings to live, experiencing a lot of stress, and fearing he would be
evicted from his home: "It affects your relationship with your children,
who are the most important thing in my life."
Industrial strife
Wainwright, 45, grew up in Deeside, north Wales. He started off as an
electrician then ran a recruitment agency before being recruited by the
Tarmac construction firm.
His whistleblowing story starts in 1997 when he was the national
labour manager at an engineering company, Crown House (then a Tarmac
subsidiary). He had been told by a senior manager that construction
companies paid a private investigator, Ian Kerr, for information to
"ensure that certain workers did not gain employment on their projects".
He was told to meet Kerr because the vetting was being extended to
Crown House's labour force.
"He
[Kerr] definitely made it clear that they were undesirable people who
had a history of causing disruption to projects," Wainwright says.
He had two meetings with Kerr, who said that many construction firms
supplied him with details of workers on his database. As an example,
Wainwright was shown a list of more than 100 names. According to
Wainwright, Kerr said that when someone applied for a job, the company
would forward their name to him so he could check his database.
Wainwright said that if a worker was rejected, a simple "no" would come
back, with no other explanation.
Wainwright's department faxed a weekly list of names to Kerr; later
the lists went to Tarmac's head office: "It was very discreet, a closely
guarded secret. It was made clear to me that I was not to discuss it
with anybody, and I didn't." However, something was stirring in his
mind: "I knew deep down that there was something wrong with it."
Yesterday, Laing O'Rourke, which now owns Crown House, said that in
recent years it had bought companies which had paid Kerr, but this had
been stopped. In 2000, Wainwright briefly worked for the Drake and Scull
construction firm. He said his managers sent him a list of 500 workers,
with their national insurance numbers, which it had received from rival
construction firm Balfour Beatty. He said the listed workers had been
employed on three large construction projects that had seen a lot of
industrial strife, and that the list was distributed to managers to
ensure some workers were not employed. The memo, dated August 2000,
advised him to "keep this information confidential".
The Emcor construction company, which owns Drake and Scull, said it
was aware of the list described by Wainwright: "We have employed
individuals named on that list, at the time and subsequently. We do not
condone blacklists."
By 2004, Wainwright was a manager for Haden Young, a subsidiary of
Balfour Beatty. Within a year, he came across what he thought was fraud
by employees, but says his bosses were not interested in finding out the
truth – a claim they deny.
"The management shunned me," he says.
"It
got to the point where I felt very isolated, alone and alienated. It was
one of the most distressing periods of my life." He initiated a
grievance complaint against the company, but began to worry that he
himself would be branded a troublemaker.
In
a letter to his head office in July 2005, he wrote: "The company
operates a blacklisting procedure for new recruits and hired temporary
agency workers to check for any previous history of union militancy,
troublemaking."
Copies of Haden Young faxes from the time show lists of names being
faxed to head office so that, he believes, they could be vetted.
Yesterday Balfour Beatty said it did "not condone the use of
'blacklists' in any circumstances and has taken steps to ensure that
none of our companies use such services." In 2006, Wainwright quit Haden
Young but lost an employment tribunal claim. He was by then convinced
that he had been blacklisted as he had applied unsuccessfully for more
than 150 jobs. He believed he had to make a concerted effort to expose
the blacklisting if he were ever going to get work. He set up a website
and posted names of hundreds of workers he believed had been blacklisted
to alert them.
Unfair dismissal
He linked up with workers who thought they were being blacklisted,
shared his inside information with them and gave evidence for them in
industrial tribunals. Three workers won their case in 2007 for unfair
dismissal when a tribunal concluded that a
"disgraceful" blacklist did
exist in the construction industry. A Guardian article on the cases last
June caught the attention of the Information Commissioner, Richard
Thomas, the official privacy watchdog. He investigated because he was
worried that workers were unfairly being denied jobs. As Wainwright had
met Kerr and still had documents concerning the alleged blacklisting, he
was able to help him. Investigators raided Haden Young premises and
tracked down the elusive Kerr to a nondescript office in Droitwich,
Worcestershire. In February, they raided Kerr's premises and seized a
secret database of 3,200 workers, effectively finishing the
66-year-old's business.
Thomas then named 40 construction firms including Balfour Beatty, Sir
Robert McAlpine, Laing O'Rourke, Emcor and Crown House, which he said
had been clandestinely using the database to vet potential workers.
According to Thomas, the firms bought details of the individuals' trade
union activities and work record from Kerr. Workers were said to be
labelled, for example, as
"Communist party",
"lazy and a
trouble-stirrer", "Do not touch" and
"Irish ex-army bad egg". Among the
entries was one on Wainwright recording how he had helped blacklisted
workers.
Now the jovial Wainwright is happily out of the construction industry and working for a concert ticket business.
He is animated about who are the ultimate culprits – the directors of
the construction companies. "Ian Kerr is not the primary cause of this.
The companies set him up in business, funded his existence from the
start, and each name on the list would have been provided by the
companies. The directors took the decisions to join the system."
He
is not ready to celebrate the end of blacklisting yet as he is waiting
to see if Mandelson manages to draw up a proper law to eradicate it.
"I
am cautiously optimistic, however," he says.
Alan Wainwright's new blog on the construction industry blacklist is now live
Alan Wainwright: the CV
Born Chester 1963.
Career 1979-1989, qualified electrician;
1989-1993, managing director of own recruitment business;
1993-2000, national labour manager, Crown House;
2000, business improvement director at Emcor Drake & Scull;
2001-2004, human resources consultancy work;
2004-2005, production manager, Haden Young;
2006-present, concert ticket buyer, after 200 unsuccessful job applications.
Family Divorced, son 21 and daughter 19.
Interests Writing, performing and watching live music.
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