Blacklisting Support Group: The Parliamentary hearing

Blacklister Ian Kerr broke his silence and gave nearly nearly four hours of evidence to the Scottish Affairs Select Committee investigation into blacklisting.

Among the more jaw dropping evidence:

• Kerr has been a full-time blacklister since 1969 – previously employed by the Economic League before he became the Chief Executive of the Consulting Association.
• Cullum McAlpine – Director of several companies within the Sir Robert McAlpine group was the first Chairman of the Consulting Association after providing a £10,000 start-up loan following the demise of the Economic League.
• Union officials provided information about their own members that ended up on the blacklist files. Ian Davidson MP described this as “the union putting the kybosh on someones employment”
• Kerr and other blacklist spies were sent undercover into union meetings
• Widespread blacklisting took place on the Olympics construction project by McAlpine, Skanska and Balfour Beatty.
• Crossrail – “An awful lot of discussion took place at Consulting Association meetings about the Crossrail Project”
• Safety Reps were blacklisted if they were too persistent and likely to delay a project.

Media reports