Major construction firms are embroiled in a legal dispute over a multimillion-pound compensation bill that has been paid to more than 1,100 blacklisted trade unionists.
The workers won payouts totalling £55m after they discovered that construction firms had unlawfully compiled confidential files on their political and employment activities, preventing them from getting jobs.
Eight firms, including Sir Robert McAlpine and Balfour Beatty, have so far paid the compensation, and issued an “unreserved and sincere” apology, to the blacklisted workers. Now the eight companies are pursuing legal action to force another firm, Amec Foster Wheeler, to make a contribution to the compensation bill, arguing that the blacklisting was organised across the construction industry.
Amec is resisting the legal action, arguing that it is not culpable, according to legal documents filed in the high court.
The legal wrangling comes as the eight construction firms face another round of compensation claims from workers who allege that they too were blacklisted. A trial is due to start on 4 June.
More than 40 construction firms secretly funded the blacklisting operation between 1993 and 2009 under the guise of an anodyne organisation known as the Consulting Association. The firms maintained a database of individual workers by pooling information such as their suspected political sympathies, perceived militancy and details of their health and personal relationships. They used the database to deny work to those whom they considered to be troublemakers. These workers were not told why they had been barred from jobs and often suffered long periods of unemployment.
The blacklist was exposed a decade ago after it was shut down by the official watchdog, theinformation commissioner, who declared it was unlawful. The watchdog named 44 companies, including five Amec firms, which had funded the blacklist.
The blacklisted workers obtained copies of the files held on them and started a campaign to find out how they had been denied jobs.
In 2016, the eight firms reached out-of-court settlements with the workers just before a trial was due to start. So far, the eight firms have paid compensation totalling nearly £35m, along with legal costs of more than £20m, to 1,150 workers through these settlements and a separate redress scheme.
The other firms in the group are Costain, Kier, Laing O’Rourke, Skanska UK, Vinci and Carillion.
Subsequently the eight firms launched legal action against at least four other companies alleging that they should each pay a contribution towards the compensation bill. Three companies including Emcor have settled, leaving an unresolved claim against Amec.
In legal papers, barristers for the eight firms accused Amec of “wrongful involvement in and use” of the blacklist maintained by the Consulting Association.
They allege Amec (which became Amec Foster Wheeler in 2014) contributed 9% of the information in the blacklisting files.
A spokesperson for Wood Group, the oil services firm that bought Amec Foster Wheeler in 2017, said: “We cannot comment on a matter that is currently before the court. However, we would point out that Amec’s construction-related businesses which used the Consulting Association were all sold or wound up in 2007.”
A spokeswoman for the eight firms declined to comment while the legal case continued.
The Consulting Association files were held mainly on construction workers but also on environmental and animal rights campaigners. The legal papers show that more than 100 campaigners received compensation as their names were recorded in the files. However, the information commissioner had failed to seize the substantive files on these campaigners when he closed down the blacklist in 2009.