Engineer claims that Carillion-owned Mowlem supplied information about him to blacklist
Carillion is facing legal action from a 46-year-old former engineer who claims senior managers at Mowlem, the firm acquired by Carillion in 2006, supplied information about him to an industry blacklist.
In what is believed to be the first blacklisting case to make use of the Human Rights Act, engineer Dave Smith’s lawyers hope to persuade an employment tribunal that Carillion and John Mowlem breached his human rights to privacy and freedom of association.
Smith says he was added to a database compiled by a firm called the Consulting Association, after raising concerns about issues such as a near-fatal accident at his workplace. The existence of the alleged blacklist was uncovered by the Information Commissioners Office during a raid in March 2009.
Smith claims the file includes his name, address, national insurance number, work history and details of his car and union connections.
A preliminary hearing was heard this week and Smith told Building a full merits hearing was likely to be held in January 2012.
A spokesperson for Carillion said he was not aware of the specific case, but that there were “dozens, maybe a hundred” firms implicated in the use of blacklists.
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