Last month a worker was killed at the building site of the Francis Crick Institute as a sheet of steel fell on him.
The Institute, due to open in 2015, is a joint project between UCL, Imperial and King’s, amongst others, to create a new centre for biomedical research. UCL itself has con- tributed £40m to the project.
In the weeks leading up to the death, ques- tions were raised about the safety of the work- place. Trade union Unite claims that Laing O'Rourke, the contractor operating the site, had denied safety representatives access to the site, though Laing O"Rourke dispute this.
In the wake of the death, demonstrations sprung up around the site, incorporating a TUC campaign against the blacklisting of workers known to be active within their union. One worker at the demo, who asked not to be named, told 7he Cheese Grater how being blacklisted resulted in him losing work and wages. He said that his blacklisting came after he was identified as a union representa- tive, and he was only reinstated after a lengthy battle against his contractor.
Another protest on the same day at a site in Leeds left two blacklisted workers in hos- pital after being assaulted by security staff. A blacklist support organisation has since con- firmed that neither suffered any serious injury.
Professor John Hendy QC, a visiting professor at UCL and specialist in industrial relations, told The Cheese Grater that ‘cre- ating a secret list of trade union activists for the purpose of denying them employment is both morally obnoxious and unlawful [...] It would not appear to be compatible with UCL duty, its moral standing and its regard for the rule of law to deal with companies which set up, financed and continued the pernicious practice of blacklisting; a practice from which those companies only desisted when the secret organisation they had set up to organise the blacklisting was publicly re- vealed!
The £600m contract was awarded to La- ing O'Rourke in 2011, with Katie Matthews, Head of Communication at the Institute, insisting that the company ‘scored the highest in both technical and commercial factors and represented the best value for money. The Francis Crick Institute wished to make it clear that Laing O'Rourke have absolute control of the site until its completion in 2015.
Laing O'Rourke is not the only contractor to blacklist workers, but it has been accused of being one of the worst. The company made £54m in profits last year; in the light of its employment practices and apparent disre- gard for safety, it is possible that the value for money UCL was so keen on has come at a tragic price.