STORIES OF BLACKLISTED UNION MEMBERS working in construction
28th April 2023
For decades, thousands of construction workers names were compiled on a secret database by a firm called the Consulting Association, to implicate them in a blacklist that took away their right to work. Big name builders such as Carillion, Balfour Beatty, Skanska would fax names to the CA to check if workers were on the list. If they were on the list, they were laid off. The workers, many of whom were involved in union action, had their suspicions but no tangible evidence as to why this was happening. Until in 2008 the files were unearthed, and The Blacklisting Support Group took the companies to court.
Stories of Blacklisted Union Members is a photo essay meeting four of the construction workers whose lives were impacted by the lists and who fought for justice. Featuring Paul Crimmins, Dave Smith, Michael Dooley and Keith Dobie with his wife, Sylvia Dobie.
Blacklisted union activist and bricklayer, Paul Crimmins standing in Covent Garden, London near a site where he once worked. Thursday, Mar. 2, 2023. (Photo/Miri de Villers) Crimmins, still a bricklayer today, was an active union activist in London throughout the 80’s and 90’s. blacklisted for years, he joined The Blacklisted Support group. “You know, there was times I couldn’t get work. I remember we were in Wembley Stadium and a friend said they’re desperate for bricklayers. I’d ring up and they’d say, ‘Give us your name mate, I’ll get back to you.’ But I never heard. It was shitty because it was right near my house, steady work, and quite well paid. So instead, I’m driving out to Stevenage to dig holes in the rain. That was the only way I could make a living. It stole off me the most productive years of my life at work.”
Blacklisted union activist and GMB Local Organiser, Michael Dooley, in a café in West London, looking at his Blacklist files. Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023. (Photo/Miri de Villers) Dooley, who was a union activist at the time and still is, was blacklisted and struggled to find work for years. “For two or three years it was quite difficult. I had a young family, six children, in London. It was quite hard on the family. Plus, I didn’t want to tell my wife that this was happening. I didn’t think it was the right thing to do, so I would try to get money from anywhere. Beg, steal, and borrow.”
Michael Dooley holding his blacklist files with an article reading ‘Storm in a Teacup’ in a café in West London. The file features an article about Dooley and Crimmins. Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023. (Photo/Miri de Villers) Crimmins and Dooley had a row with contractors when their tea breaks on a job were cut from 30 minutes to 20 minutes. The pair subsequently were sacked and staged a protest which eventually won workers their break back. In the article Dooley quotes “We have no quarrel with those firms who are just and fair. But we have got to keep a check on the tyrants and money grabbers. The message is – it’s going to cost you”. Blacklisting files such as Dooley's often included clippings from articles like these.
Dave Smith, founder of the Blacklist Support Group, hands wrapped around a teacup in a café in North London. Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023. (Photo/Miri de Villers) “When all the blacklisted filed were discovered back in 2009 If you thought your name was on the list, you could send your contact information to the Commissioner's Office and they'd send you a copy of your own. Once a few of us got our files, we were all activists and knew and talked to each other so we said we’d have a meeting. The first meeting, John McDonnell organised. We didn’t have an actual room, so we all sat around a table in the corridor going down to where the meeting rooms were.”
Dave Smith smiling in a café in North London. Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023. (Photo/Miri de Villers) “I had every job I worked on in that folder. Most of it was because of literally because of health and safety. You didn’t need to be Arthur Scargill to get on the blacklist. I was just associated. Some people are on it just because of complaining about unpaid wages. The very first thing on my file was in 1992 in a dispute with Balfour Beatty because of picketing over several weeks of unpaid wages. It was obvious what was going on, because it was the middle of a building boom and if you were a union activist you couldn’t get work”
Keith Dobie and his wife, Sylvia Dobie, sitting in a café in North London. Thursday, Mar. 2, 2023. (Photo/Miri de Villers) Keith Dobie was blacklisted because of his union activism in the 70’s. “I was just going along with things, I was just watching and learning about how this stuff works. The joint sites at the time were run by people who had been in the building industry for a long time. They were household names, which meant their photographs were up in canteens. So if they walked onto a site, they’d call the police. We’d go along to the joint sites and listen. And then you’d chip in, maybe. You held these people in high regard. Politically you might have a lot of differences but at the same time you learnt that these people deserve respect and the closer you worked with them, the more respect you had for them. I became more and more active on the site. Then it got called out for an all-out strike which lasted 13 weeks.”
Keith Dobie and his wife, Sylvia Dobie, on their way to the NEU Haringey Rally, London. Thursday, Mar. 2, 2023. (Photo/Miri de Villers) “It’s not so much what they did to me, because I had ten years where I had a reasonably good income and some days were fun. I think the thing that impacts me is that they can do that to people. They can say, look what we did to them.”
Keith Dobie and his wife, Sylvia Dobie, at the NEU Haringey Rally, London. Thursday, Mar. 2, 2023. (Photo/Miri de Villers) Dobie would go to sites with the union and encourage people to walk out on their jobs. “In 1972, we walked on jobs where the guys had been working for the company for years. Some of these guys had never worked for anyone else. Their day was getting up in the morning, going to work, coming home, going to the pub, going to get a bit to eat and going to bed. These guys were known as ‘’loyals’ – a somewhat derogatory term at the time - and they walked out. It happens because you have the room. Everything that was achieved in those days was achieved from the bottom up and that’s what they’re most afraid of.”
Blacklisted union activist and bricklayer, Paul Crimmins standing in front of a block of flats in Covent Garden, London near a site where he once worked. Thursday, Mar. 2, 2023. (Photo/Miri de Villers) Crimmins was working on a Willmott Dixon site here when he realised the check had bounced. Back in the day it was normal for subcontractors to cut builders short. “That’s what it was like. So many people would just accept it. The amount of people this has happened to, they were just robbing more and more money off us”. Five men, including Crimmins and blacklist activist Michael Dooley, went en-masse to the site to demand their wages back. “We actually got fucking jobs where we could cause aggression. That was our MO.”
Blacklisted union activist and bricklayer, Paul Crimmins being expressive in front of a block of flats in Covent Garden, London near a site where he once worked. Thursday, Mar. 2, 2023. (Photo/Miri de Villers) Willmott Dixon were on Crimmins’ blacklisting file, even though it was an argument with the subcontractor. “I went to the head office, and they said it was nothing they could do. So, I said, well fair enough I’m going to be outside giving this leaflet out telling people what’s happened. Obviously, they shit themselves. They didn’t want the adverse publicity. So, he rang the subcontractor and put me on the phone. ‘I’ll fucking kill you, fuck this, fuck that.’ This geezer would have attacked me, he was a hooligan. About three hours later they said we’ve got a cheque.”
Michael Dooley, pointing at a building in West London where he once occupied for ten days. Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023. (Photo/Miri de Villers) Michael Dooley, along with three others, were sacked by an employer after they helped stage a protest to fight the depletion of working conditions on building job. Dooley occupied the rooftop of the building for ten days following this, in an attempt to reinstate those that were sacked. “I took some water and a little bit of food intending to stay for one or two days. Because of the media attention and the police ready to arrest me, it was decided I was to stay out there for a longer period.” Dooley didn’t win the fight, but became somewhat of a name for this protest – which also made it on to his blacklisting files.
Dave Smith standing outside the office where he was training that week, North London. Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023. (Photo/Miri de Villers) Smith, along with many other blacklisted workers couldn’t get a job in the building industry again. Today, he’s continuing to work hard for the rights of blacklisted workers: “The blacklist group started with just a group of people having meetings. After a while we had MP’s, journalists, and support from all kinds of other activists. It’s been successful.”