Blacklisting: Fight trouble with troublemaking!

Submitted by martin on 11 March, 2009 - 10:53 Author: Darren Bedford

Even in periods of low levels of class struggle, bosses do not neglect their basic techniques for making sure their workforces are as compliant and trouble-free as possible.

The history of blacklisting in Cold War-era America — where lists of suspected (Stalinist) communists, Trotskyists, trade union militants and other dissidents were compiled to keep troublemakers out of certain jobs — is well-known; it seems that its spirit is alive and well in modern-day Britain.

A story that broke first in the Guardian exposed several construction industry giants, including Laing O’Rourke, Sir Robert McAlpine and Balfour Beatty, as having used private investigators to purchase secret information (including information on trade union activity) about potential employees for years.

The commissioner now investigating the scandals reports viewing documents marked with comments such as “communist party”, “ex-shop steward, definite problems, no go”, “do not touch”, “orchestrated strike action” and “lazy and a trouble-stirrer”.

Scandously this type of activity is not illegal. In 1999, the government retreated from passing a law that would’ve banned it on the spurious basis that there was no hard evidence blacklisting was taking place.

The timing of the recent revelations is pertinent; the construction industry wildcat strikes have shown that workers in that sector are still prepared to take militant action. Their bosses, it seems, have known this for some time and have been working against such threats.

The acknowledged existence of blacklisting blows out of the water the widely held view — including among much of the labour movement bureaucracy — that class struggle is a thing of the past and that antagonisms between workers and bosses can be arbitrated out of existence. If construction industry bosses are prepared to pay good money in order to avoid hiring agitators and activists, then they must still believe that class struggle exists. Blacklisting troublesome workers is one of their ways of fighting the class struggle from their, bosses, point of view.

Although blacklisting may shock those whose political point-of-departure is middle-class liberalism, it is old news for working-class activists. Anyone who has been involved in any serious industrial struggle will have experienced first-hand how bosses cook up half-baked reasons and technicalities to dismiss, or refuse to hire, workers they see as potential threats.

Members of the RMT, a union which in contrast to others does regularly take up disputes and industrial action in defence of its members, routinely face victimisation and dismissal on the basis of their trade union activities. But the experience of the RMT also proves that blacklisting can only be resisted by wielding union strength.

In February 2009, RMT activist Derrick Marr was awarded “interim relief” — effectively a continuation of his contract — after his employers, National Express East Anglia, sacked him on a medical technicality. In October 2008, Andy Littlechild’s job was saved after his workmates threatened strike action.

These struggles prove that the only effective response to bosses trying to undermine or avoid the problem of workers' organisation is to make every workplace a threat and every worker a troublemaker!

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