First round of Umbrella Scam protests

First Round of Umbrella Scam Protests

In recent weeks there has been unrest on several large projects across the UK. The reason for the unrest is the use of large scale, long term use of agency labour and the Umbrella Scam.

Sparks were sacked at the Balfour Beatty Crossrail site at Whitechapel for refusing to be paid through the Umbrella Scam. Unite got them reinstated.
Workers cabined up at Manchester City's training Ground, Balfour Beatty again with BAM as the main contractor.
Workers cabined up at Cramlington Hospital, Newcastle. Due to being forced onto the Umbrella scam, once again another Balfour Beatty project.
There was severe unrest at a site in Swansea at Morriston Hospital, yet again another Balfour Beatty site.

There is a reoccurring theme with all of the above. Balfour Beatty.

Police called as blacklist workers occupy head office of employment agency

 Police called as blacklist workers occupy head office of employment agency

Police were called to the UK head office of the Danish owned employment agency Atlanco Rimec today (Friday 23rd may 2014) when it was occupied by campaigners from the Blacklist Support Group and members of the UCATT and UNITE trade unions. The employment agency that operates in the UK and Ireland construction industry is centre of a storm after it was exposed on Danish TV that it kept a secret blacklist of workers who joined a union and denied them work. The revelations were made by an ex-manager of the firm in a documentary broadcast on the DR1 TV channel last week.

The Labour MP Ian Davidson, who chaired the parliamentary Select Committee investigation into blacklisting issued a statement saying:  “What we have seen shows clearly that the use of agency workers is a weak spot in eradicating blacklisting and we therefore recommended that direct employment and transparent recruitment practices should be standard for all public-sector contracts in the construction industry,” 

Among the blacklist protesters was Northampton grandfather and blacklisted bricklayer Brian Higgins