Blacklisting and its legacy in the UK construction industry: employment relations in the aftermath of exposure of the Consulting Association

Abstract

This paper explores responses to the exposure of blacklisting in the UK construction industry in the period following the closure of the Consulting Association (CA) in 2009. It asks whether employer collusion to blacklist in this way has been terminated and concludes that it is now largely of historical interest although other forms of antiunion activity continue. It highlights particularly the historic and continuing importance of 'double breasting' and reports on divergent employer paths in the aftermath of the exposure and subsequent closure of the activities of the CA.

Collective wage bargaining under strain in northern European construction: Resisting institutional drift?

“…In practice, the CIJC is a flexible agreement allowing decentralized variation of standards. Union density was 12 percent among employees in 2016, down from 17 percent in 2007, and in some parts of the country and segments of the industry anti-union practices such as blacklisting and harassment of activists have widely occurred (Druker, 2016). Tensions over collective bargaining occur more in the North, which tends to be have a higher coverage rate than London, where important collective agreements were struck on major sites such as the Olympic Park and Heathrow Airport, although the small-project residential sector remains very unregulated.…”

False self‐employment: the case of Ukrainian migrants in London's construction sector

“…We now discuss our interpretation of these findings. To sum up, our study reveals that the construction sector in the UK (Druker, 2016;Druker and White, 2013;MacKenzie et al, 2010;Mustchin, 2014) acts as a sphere in which illegal migrants have the opportunity to work through the enactment of false forms of selfemployment. As a result of the perceived lack of enforcement of immigration controls, illegal migrant workers are easily recruited into this sector and move from contractor to contractor without being identified by state agencies.…”

“…With the aim to advance existing discussions on how undocumented migrants engage in self-employment (Hopkins and Dawson, 2016;Jones et al, 2014) within UK's construction sector (Druker, 2016;Druker and White, 2013;MacKenzie et al, 2010;Mustchin, 2014), this article outlines how illegal self-employed Ukrainian migrants engage in forms of 'false' self-employment. We find that the institutional and regulatory environment within London's construction sector accommodates and perhaps encourages the growth of false forms of self-employment.…”

“…() suggest, in their comparative study of migrant labour within construction markets in the UK and Spain, in response to the desire for more flexibility within European labour market, in the UK, there has developed a migrant labour market in the construction sector, which whilst being ‘hyperflexible’, nonetheless, fails to offer migrant workers adequate protection from organised trade unions. In response, in the construction sector in the UK (see Druker, ; Druker and White, ), which incorporates the specific features of the Construction Industry Scheme, over recent years, increasingly it is a norm to employ workers as self‐employed, as this brings potential benefits to the employer, because of simplified contractual arrangements.…”

Contemporary employer victimisation of lay union representatives in Britain: Issues, dynamics and extent

“…By far, the most obvious recent evidence of the widespread employer victimisation of lay union representatives in Britain has come in the form of the uncovering of sustained ‘blacklisting’ within the construction industry (see Druker 2016; Fawbert 2016; Smith & Chamberlain 2015, 2016). Here, 3,214 workers were identified as likely victims of the practice in the construction industry between 1993 and 2009, whereby employment opportunities would be denied to individual workers classified as ‘troublemakers’ and ‘malcontents’, following a raid by the Information Commissioner’s Office on the premises of The Consulting Association in 2009.…”