Blacklisting Documents Review & Mr. McCluskey

 Editor of Northern Voices:
THE letter below was sent last Thursday by Len McCluskey, the leader of Unite, to the blacklist whistle-blower, Alan Wainwright, and to members of the Construction NISC (National Industrial Sector Committee) and to Unite Construction members of the Executive Council.  We publish Mr. McCluskey's letter in full.  This letter comes now following an earlier promise from Mr. McCluskey that he would set up an independent inquiry into alleged collusion by paid trade union officers in Blacklisting: 
 

24 August 2017 
To: All Unite Construction NISC members and Unite Construction Executive Council members

Dear Colleague,
Blacklisting Documents Review

As you are aware Unite have, since I have been General Secretary, put the full resources of the union behind supporting victims of Blacklisting. We have successfully litigated against those companies that engaged in Blacklisting, run a successful Leverage campaign and are now gathering evidence to tackle contemporary blacklisting.
There have recently been calls for us to consider all documents that have been disclosed in the High Court litigation to see if there is any evidence of officer collusion in Blacklisting. I have committed to undertaking that review.
Presently Unite have a further 70 plus cases being taken for victims of Blacklisting.  It is vitally important that any review of documentation does not disrupt that litigation. As such I have given instructions that a Counsel from Doughty Street Chambers be instructed to review all of the disclosure documents from the litigation and to provide a report for use in the current litigation that deals with general issues as well as the specific issue as to whether there is any evidence of officer collusion. This report will remain confidential whilst there is ongoing litigation but when that litigation is concluded it will be available. If there is any evidence arising from the documents it will be acted upon.
I have asked Howard Beckett to attend the next construction NISC to update the NISC as to the current litigation and the intended strategy of trying to get those individuals responsible for the Blacklist into Court.

  Yours sincerely,
   LEN McCLUSKEY
   General Secretary

http://www.unite4len.co.uk/len-mccluskey-vows-carry-fight-blacklisted-workers/

 

Scruffy Workmen in Hoodies Wreak Havoc in Lovely Hampshire Village : Bosses say: 'Industrial Strife, NOT IN MY BACKYARD!'

IS NO WHERE safe these days from those hordes of the uncouth horny-handed labourers. The miners can knock shit out of each other in our Northern towns and at Olgreave or up North in Sunderland, but now these people are invading the land of the southern swine at Lymington Town Sailing Club, or Limewood Hotel in the New Forest, or Highclere Castle in Hampshire where Downton Abbey was filmed, damn-it, this is all too much for the likes of southerners such as journalist Dominic Lawson, the brother of Nigella, in yesterday's Sunday Times, David Cameron in Parliament this week, and editor Paul Dacre's Daily Mail. These grimy-faced tribes of northern working-men have been descending on the doorsteps of managing directors and frightening the horses. It seems that this Leverage campaign by the Unite union is having a significant effect , because according to Dominic Lawson in yesterday's Sunday Times: 'that last week a manager at Grangemouth petrochemical facility in Stirlingshire – which had been besieged by the union's activists. It was during the school holidays and the director was telephoned by his wife to be told that a “mob” had appeared on their doorstep. Children in the street had apparently also been co-opted by this band of brothers “to portray me as someone evil... it had quite an impact on my kids. It is hard to find words for the lunacy of their behaviour.' Another director from the same firm Ineos has described his plight to the Daily Mail [31st, Oct. 2013} thus: 'They have send [sic] flying squads of protesters to dozens of businesses we have links with. The[y] put leaflets through the door of pretty much every house in Lyndhurst where we have our headquarters. My daughter received a poster explaining what a terrible person I am.' 'Lunacy' indeed! We know that these folk who run and write in newspapers like the Sunday Times, The Sun, and the Daily Mail, who are themselves incomers in leafy Cotswold places like Chipping Norton and Morton-in-the-Marsh don't want to have their lunches spoiled at their favourite restaurants by gangs of protesters waving banners and even in one case carrying an effigy of a giant rat. We all now know thanks to the widespread publication of the activities of some residents in the Home Counties whereby friends and neighbours of David Cameron such as Rebekah Brooks, former chief executive of News International, and Andy Coulson, former editor of the now defunct News of the World, may dwell in these leafy towns swap horses and shag each other's arses off. In The Diary of a Chambermaid, the French writer Mirabeau puts words in the mouth of Mademoiselle Célestine who draws the conclusion which the reader is also invited to draw: 'However much riffraff are vile, they are never as vile as decent people'.