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Crossrail blacklist allegations

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The Observer newspaper has claimed that a senior manager on the Crossrail project used a secret list of trade union members provided by a blacklisting company at his previous job. According to evidence given at an Employment Tribunal, Ron Barron, the project's industrial relations manager, cross-checked job applicants against a secret list of workers to be barred from the industry, a list that he helped to compile. An employment tribunal found that he introduced the use of the blacklist, obtained from the Consulting Association, at his former employer, the construction firm CB&I, and referred to it more than 900 times in 2007 alone. The list was seized in 2009 by the Information Commissioner's office. A Crossrail spokesperson said Barron had stopped working on the project last month and there was no evidence of blacklisting of workers from the site. However, Ian Kerr, chief officer of the Consulting Association, told a committee of Scottish MPs last week that his members had talked at length about Crossrail during meetings to discuss the list. He claimed 'An awful lot of discussion took place at Consulting Association meetings about the Crossrail project." He also confirmed that firms blacklisted workers from the Olympic Park and a range of other projects including Portcullis House, the Admiralty, the Ministry of Defence's Whitehall HQ, GCHQ, the Jubilee line and the new Wembley stadium.

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