BRITAIN’S biggest union has called for a "Leveson-style inquiry" into the blacklisting that stopped more than 150 Merseyside workers from getting work in the construction industry.
Unite said the scandal – highlighted in a recent investigation – had ruined lives and was an injustice on the scale of phone hacking.
Its general secretary welcomed a Commons call from the Labour opposition that victims are informed if their names are on the lists.
Currently, people who suspect they had been blacklisted by leading construction firms have to approach the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to find out if they were.
Chuka Umunna, Labour shadow business secretary, was today due to use a Commons debate to call for the ICO to ensure everything is done to ensure victims have the best chance of compensation.
The names of more than 3,000 people were found on the list when the ICO raided the offices of the Consulting Association, which kept the files, in 2009.
But many of them still do not know if they are on the lists. Mr Umunna said: "Blacklisting is a national scandal. Workers have had their livelihoods destroyed, reputations tarnished and in some cases families torn apart."
Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said: "This is a scandal on the scale of phone hacking, except it is the lives of thousands of ordinary construction workers which have been ruined. There should be a full and proper inquiry.
"Lives have been ruined and families have been torn apart, just because workers had raised safety concerns." in Britain's most dangerous industry or just because they exercised their human rights to belong to a trade union."
