Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

The Return of The Blacklist

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    The Return of The Blacklist

    http://news.google.co.uk/news?ned=uk&ncl=dzU1W_IzScF9nvM1ReLshINqGfkTM

    Pretty shocking this.

    The previous insidious organisation that ran one of these (the Economic Laegue) blacklisted my Mum, my Dad and my Brother (Yes I felt left out!).

    In one of my mum's major successes as a MP she ran the campaign that eventually put them out of business. The campaign revolved on both the immorality of it, but also how the records were hopelesssly inaccurate. Including failing to note that my Mother was a Labour MP and not a 'shop steward with communist affiliations'

    http://www.1in12events.co.uk/archive/publications/library/spies/spies.htm

    Anyway my sympathies to those who have lost work because they raised concerned and complained and to those who lost work due to an being subject to an arbitary database.

    #2
    The Return of The Blacklist

    We badly need Lord Mauleverer's angle here, I think.

    Comment


      #3
      The Return of The Blacklist

      It'll be obtuse.

      Comment


        #4
        The Return of The Blacklist

        Nicky Jambo's phone in today covered the issue, albeit superficially. His guest, a small business owner, kept harping on about gormless applicants revealing inane details of their lives on Facebook- as if that was comparable to the immoraility and defamation chippy mentions.

        Credit to Maria Fyfe MP by the way, if I can mention her by name?

        Comment


          #5
          The Return of The Blacklist

          Very kind of you to show an interest in my angle, Wyatt. I believe the right angle (to pick up on EIM's geometry gag theme) is to say "well done" to the Information Commissioner's office for its effective enforcement of important data protection law that is rightly on the statute book to protect the rights of all citizens, even union bolshies, to fair process and transparency, and freedom from victimisation.

          Comment


            #6
            The Return of The Blacklist

            What in the name of god are "union bolshies"?

            Comment


              #7
              The Return of The Blacklist

              Duncan Gardner wrote:
              Nicky Jambo's phone in today covered the issue, albeit superficially. His guest, a small business owner, kept harping on about gormless applicants revealing inane details of their lives on Facebook- as if that was comparable to the immoraility and defamation chippy mentions.

              Credit to Maria Fyfe MP by the way, if I can mention her by name?
              Well she is ex MP now.

              It was this campaign that also got the DPA extended to paper records.

              Their listing of my family

              Brother: "Militant" because as a 16 year old he had been secretary of one of the few Young Socialist branches not controlled by Militant

              Mother: as described above

              Father: NUJ activist and agitator (true but he had died a few years before)

              Comment


                #8
                The Return of The Blacklist

                Interesting timing. In the US, CEPR put out a report yesterday claiming that workers were illegally fired during one in four union election campaigns during the last decade.

                Comment


                  #9
                  The Return of The Blacklist

                  EIM wrote:
                  It'll be obtuse.
                  Witty and, as it turns out, prophetic.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    The Return of The Blacklist

                    Doubtless we'll see senior representatives of all three major political parties adding their voices to the chorus of condemnation.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      The Return of The Blacklist

                      Insult away, Wyatt. I stand by it. The Info Commissioner is doing a good job, detecting and prosecuting a major breach of the law.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        The Return of The Blacklist

                        Even for union bolshies. Exactly.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          The Return of The Blacklist

                          Lord Mauleverer wrote:
                          Insult away, Wyatt. I stand by it. The Info Commissioner is doing a good job, detecting and prosecuting a major breach of the law.
                          Rather than taking umbrage at an imagined insult, why not answer Vennegor's question first?

                          Or will that mean your forced into defending the indefensible, and you've resorted to a politician's answer, and chucked a non sequitur into the mix to obfuscate the debate and draw attention from the issue?

                          I repeat the question.

                          'What do you mean by "union bolshies"?'

                          Comment


                            #14
                            The Return of The Blacklist

                            Bolsheviks, I should think.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              The Return of The Blacklist

                              Picky lot, apparently, the OTF leftie massive. One-sidedly picky only of course; it's fine for posters to come out with the most ludicrously inaccurate and melodramatic hyperbole when bashing Thatcher's lot, which plenty of posters do, but woe betide anyone who utters a careless or frivolous throw away remark when criticising the forces of the left.

                              So, then, by way of clarification: I did not literally mean Bolsheviks, as in subscribers to the programme put forward by the leaders of that particular faction in 1917 Russia. Rather, I meant good for nothing left wing agitators bent solely on causing trouble and fomenting industrial unrest. Men such as Derek Robinson, for example, whose exploits at British Leyland I remember following on the news as a teenager in the late '70s. Such behaviour is called "bolshie" in common parlance amongst the general population, though not I dare say within left wing circles.

                              My point was that, whilst the construction companies subscribing to this illegal secret data service presumably just want to avoid letting agitators on to their patch (a legitimate objective), fair process needs to be granted to the guilty along with the innocent, so, just as terrorist suspects need to be given access to the law courts and not locked up for 42 days without legal process, so the tools available to employers to avoid taking on such "bolshie" trouble causers should be limited to transparent means free of secret conspiracy or the risk of accidental error, a principle obviously breached by blacklisting.

                              I trust that clarifies my meaning.

                              Edit: oh, and Guy, I wasn't "taking umbrage" at an "imagined" insult: I was being chilled about an actual deliberate insult (albeit of course a very minor one and no big deal), namely Wyatt's reference to my comments as "obtuse". Not a big point; I have a thick skin, which I obviously need in order to defend anti-left wing viewpoints on a pretty solidly left to hard left forum

                              Comment


                                #16
                                The Return of The Blacklist

                                Lord Melodrama wrote:
                                but woe betide anyone who utters a careless or frivolous throw away remark when criticising the forces of the left
                                Ha ha. Have you been banned? Deleted? Asked to do anything other than back your wind-ups with some evidence? No? Have a biscuit.

                                So, then, by way of clarification: I did not literally mean Bolsheviks...rather, I meant good for nothing left wing agitators bent solely on causing trouble and fomenting industrial unrest. Men such as Derek Robinson
                                Aye, right. You clearly mean trade unionists generally- local shop stewards, whistleblowers, people taking personal risk to expose unsafe workplaces and law-breaking employers. Spare us the Dail Express cliche manual, will you? If Red Robbo was such a threat to democracy, his employers could have dismissed for gross misconduct or even prosecuted. Don't use bad management in the 1970s to condone bad employers' criminality now.

                                Such behaviour is called "bolshie" in common parlance amongst the general population, though not I dare say within left wing circles
                                Really? Is it anything to do with political correctness gone mad?

                                Lord Malevolent wrote:
                                My point was that, whilst the construction companies subscribing to this illegal secret data service presumably just want to avoid letting agitators on to their patch (a legitimate objective)
                                You presume a lot, m'lud. Law-abiding employers don't flagrantly break the law to blacklist trade unionists. Their targets are not at all legitimate.

                                fair process needs to be granted to the guilty along with the innocent
                                I wouldn't try that one in your next tribunal, unless all these communist revolutionaries formenting excitedly under your bed have actually been convicted of anything first.

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  The Return of The Blacklist

                                  I really don't mean this in a nasty way (though I don't suppose it can really be taken as anything other) but does anyone else think this LM character comes over as a comedy Tory made up by one of us lefties to make ourselves feel even more smug?

                                  Comment


                                    #18
                                    The Return of The Blacklist

                                    You clearly mean trade unionists generally- local shop stewards, whistleblowers, people taking personal risk to expose unsafe workplaces and law-breaking employers.
                                    Errm, not much I can say in response to that other than "no, it most certainly isn't". I know what I meant, and that isn't it. Not the slightest shade of doubt or uncertainty. You are simply attributing views to me which I not only do not hold, but would abhor.

                                    Comment


                                      #19
                                      The Return of The Blacklist

                                      does anyone else think this LM character comes over as a comedy Tory made up by one of us lefties to make ourselves feel even more smug?
                                      You can't fool me with that bluster TonTon, I can detect the signs of cracking in your convictions.

                                      Comment


                                        #20
                                        The Return of The Blacklist

                                        Lord Mauleverer wrote:
                                        My point was that, whilst the construction companies subscribing to this illegal secret data service presumably just want to avoid letting agitators on to their patch (a legitimate objective),
                                        God forbid they may help protect the rights of their fellow workers, here here m'lud.

                                        fair process needs to be granted to the guilty along with the innocent, so, just as terrorist suspects need to be given access to the law courts and not locked up for 42 days without legal process,
                                        Here here, send all lefty agitators to Guantanamo. Start with those bastards trying to Unionise in my local WalMart/ASDA

                                        Comment


                                          #21
                                          The Return of The Blacklist

                                          Kowalski, if you read my post a little more slowly you may detect that actually I was saying the very opposite: nobody should be sent to Guanatanamo, and everybody deserves fair process. So I was saying the 180 degree opposite of what you imply. Apart from that, fair point well made.

                                          Comment


                                            #22
                                            The Return of The Blacklist

                                            I did and I liked the comparison between bolshies and terrorists best, right on!!

                                            Comment


                                              #23
                                              The Return of The Blacklist

                                              You can't fool me with that bluster TonTon, I can detect the signs of cracking in your convictions.
                                              It's good that you've got a sense of humour about it, of course. Something us lefties never seem to manage, hohoho.

                                              But I have to say, you're right. After 30 or so years as a socialist, in a world where your ideas - the ideas of the ruling class - are the ruling ideas, where I've been in a majority on many idividual issues but always on a small minority overall, reading a few cliches from a troll-u-like on otf is quite likely to shake my convictions.

                                              Comment


                                                #24
                                                The Return of The Blacklist

                                                Is it really impossible to say on OTF that Unions in certain industries can become extremely regressive and undemocratic forces?

                                                The printing unions, for example, were often racist. They ensured jobs for their children and prevented anyone else getting employed.

                                                The dockers who famously marched to support Powell when Heath sacked him after the rivers of Blood speech.

                                                The Teamsters in the US have scarcely been a paragon of democracy, or the Baggage Handlers at Heathrow, who seemed to use the power of the union to retain access to passengers' luggage as one of the perks of the job.

                                                That's not to say of course that Thatcher was right. I'm a fairly proud union member and always have been. But it's reasonable surely to assert that Unions in some cases can and do abuse their power.

                                                Comment


                                                  #25
                                                  The Return of The Blacklist

                                                  Is it really impossible to say on OTF that Unions in certain industries can become extremely regressive and undemocratic forces?
                                                  Dunno - give it a go, see what happens.

                                                  Comment

                                                  Working...
                                                  X