Next week will see the publication of a new book on a scandal that has not received as much attention as many believe it should have done.
The book - Blacklisted : the Secret War between Big Business and Union Activists - is a comprehensive expose of how thousands of workers were blacklisted and prevented from getting work.
Multi-national construction firms unlawfully kept secret files on workers that they thought were politically troublesome. This here, here, and here gives some background on how the blacklist operated.
The book contains an illuminating account of what is so far known about one particular aspect of this controversy - the clandestine help that police appear to have given to the construction industry blacklisters over many years.
It describes evidence of how the police secretly collected information about the political activities of workers that was passed onto the blacklisters to store in their secret files.
An extract from the book was published by The Guardian at the weekend (it can be read here).
Slowly more information is emerging about this apparent collusion. For instance, Peter Francis, the former undercover officer turned whistleblower, has described (see here) how he believes that he personally collected some of the intelligence that later appeared in the files of the blacklisting agency.
The book will be launched at a public meeting at the House of Commons next Thursday (March 12). The speakers include the two authors, Dave Smith and Phil Chamberlain, Unite’s assistant general secretary Gail Cartmail, and MP John McDonnell.
The meeting - open to all - starts at 6pm and will be in committee room 15. This here is a short video about the book. It is available to buy from bookshop.theguardian.com.
