[BITList] Police colluded in secret plan to blacklist 3, 200 building workers | Business | The Observer

[HUGH]

Mike,

These blacklists, though not on that scale, have always existed. When I was 
a gateboy in1948, aged 15, at Lithgow's East Shipyard here, one of my many 
duties was to take mail between that yard and the Kingston Yard.  Naturally, 
I read it when the envelopes weren't sealed, and there were lists of people 
who were not to be employed on any account.  Before I left Kvaerner Govan in 
the late 1990s I dug through some records that were being dumped in a skip 
and removed some that dated back to the early 1900s - I transcribed what I 
could and deposited the originals with an organisation that conserves local 
industrial records. They contain dozens of blacklists circulated between 
companies as far apart as the West of Scotland and the North of England. And 
I have evidence that our local council keep a blacklist.  Some years back a 
couple of trees at the front of our garden suffered severe damage from the 
weight of snow on them, so I wrote to the council and informed them that 
they were a danger to passing people, and that I proposed removing them. 
Permission (I didn't ask permisssion) was refused.  A couple of days later 
we got a visit from a chap who lives not far away, and is fairly high up in 
the council structure.  He told me permission had been refused because it 
was I who had written to them (I have been known to criticise them in 
print).  He had sent an OK, cut them down, up the line and got it sent back 
to him with comments.  "So, where are these trees," he asked me, surveying 
the garden. "I see no trees."  Quick on the uptake, I agreed that there were 
no trees - so how could I cut them down?  I cut them down the next day. 
Passing by later, he said, "As I thought, no trees."

Hugh.