Who 'exposed blacklisting'?

A London Centric Re-writing of History.
National Shop Stewards Network [NSSN] 16, JAN 2018;

THIS week the National Shop Steward's Network Bulletin reported on the current Carillion scandal that the BLACKLIST SUPPORT GROUP [BSG]  'exposed blacklisting employers such as Carillion through a heroic campaign.'  

This is not true, because when the blacklist was first exposed the BSG didn't exist.  The NSSN say this because they are predisposed to a London centric analysis.

The BSG was only founded after the blacklist had been recognised by the chairman of an Employment Tribunal in the case of .Acheson & others v the electrical engineer for sub contractor Logic in 2007.   At that time Dave Smith, the national secretary of the Blacklist Support Group, has, I believe, made clear that he did not know about the blacklist until 2009,

The wrong-headed paragraph, which foolishly re-writes the history, from the NSSN newsletter is below:

'The Blacklist Support Group exposed blacklisting employers such as Carillion through a heroic campaign. We support their call that “the government should bail out the NHS not Carillon or their bankers. The government should nationalise Carillon now at the current market value of their shares (nothing) and go further by banning all of the construction companies involved in the blacklisting human rights conspiracy from any publicly funded contracts.”
This scandal shows once and for all that the parasitic privateer companies must be forced out of the NHS and the rest of the public sector. Last summer - porters, cleaners and domestics went on strike at Serco in Royal Barts NHS Trust. One of their main demands was to be again directly employed by the NHS.'

The exposure of the blacklist in the British building trade came about owing to the relentless efforts of what Derek Pattison and Brian Bamford as officers of Tameside TUC described in their book as 'The Boys on the Blacklist'.  This publication outlines the early campaigns in Manchester in Crown Square, and outside Manchester Royal Infirmary by a handful of local electricians.  If it hadn't been for the tenacity of these northern lads, members of the EPIU NW 1400/7 branch of what was in 2003 the Transport & General Workers Union, and is now the Greater Manchester Construction Branch, Alan Wainwright the Carillion whistle-blower wouldn't have contacted the secretary of the above branch leading directly to the case at the Manchester Employment Tribunal in which the existence of the blacklist was finally recognised:  see link below.

Read more on how the blacklist in the British building trade was exposed:  www.labournet.net/ukunion/0707/mcrelec2.html

******