BBC Jon Kelly– Workers accused of theft or damage could soon find themselves blacklisted on a register to be shared among employers. It will be good for profits but campaigners say innocent people could find it impossible to get another job.
An online database of workers accused of theft and dishonesty, regardless of whether they have been convicted of any crime, which bosses can access when vetting potential employees. But this is no dystopian fantasy. Later this month, the National Staff Dismissal Register (NSDR) is expected to go live.
Organisers say that major companies including Harrods, Selfridges and Reed Managed Services have already signed up to the scheme. By the end of May they will be able to check whether candidates for jobs have faced allegations of stealing, forgery, fraud, damaging company property or causing a loss to their employers and suppliers. Workers sacked for these offences will be included on the register, regardless of whether police had enough evidence to convict them. Also on the list will be employees who resigned before they could face disciplinary proceedings at work. The project has attracted little publicity. But the BBC News website can reveal that trade unions and civil liberties campaigners are warning that it leaves workers vulnerable to the threat of false accusations.
The register is an initiative of Action Against Business Crime (AABC), which was established as a joint venture between the Home Office and the British Retail Consortium “to set up and maintain business crime reduction partnerships”. The Home Office says it stopped funding the scheme last year, having granted it almost £1m during its first three years. A Home Office spokeswoman says the register is a “commercial scheme” and it was not consulted.
Mike Schuck, chief executive of AABC, says that theft by members of staff costs the British economy billions of pounds each year and rejects the notion that the register is a blacklist. He says that all participating companies will be obliged to abide by the Data Protection Act and that workers named on the database, maintained by AABC, will have the right to change their entries if they are inaccurate.
Should a dispute take place between an employee and an employer about whether an incident occurred, Mr Schuck adds, the worker will be able to appeal to the Information Commissioner’s Office. “We are limiting access to the database to employers who can comply with the Information Commissioner’s employment practices code,” he says. “We’re not going to allow Mr Smith’s hardware store. We’re quite open about this. People will be told when they apply for jobs that they may be checked as part of the application process.
Organisers say that major companies including Harrods, Selfridges and Reed Managed Services have already signed up to the scheme.
Hmmm, well no doubt some chancers do rip off people, but given labour history can there be any doubt this will be used against people who unionise or make complaints of harassment by employers. And who arbitrates the appeal process to change an entry? Employers pay for this service so this corporation will not risk pissing off customers by taking the word of an employee against the fee paying employer. So the Information Commissioner has to get involved, do they have the resources for all the investigations? Meanwhile the wrongly slighted applicant remains without a job during a process which let’s face it will last for many weeks at least. And what of rehabilitation? Maybe you did steal but there were reasons and now you have put that behind you and are an honest person, this blacklist will lock you out of all kinds of opportunities, in perpetuity? This will ghettoise people who have made mistakes, removing the chance to start over. There already exists the criminal record bureau (however wonkily implemented) this is a privatisation of that rough idea except these are accusations and insinuations wholly untested or proved by any outside body. I suppose there is an assumption (a classist one) that people labelled on this database will not have the wherewithal to find out and then not be able to afford to sue for defamation. Which not being able to get a job is sure to enforce. No wonder the Home Office were once involved with this lot, yet even they seem to have washed their hands of this disaster. In terms of any kind of just process this is up there with the Gitmo faux trials and culturally the corruption that has spread from the war of terror however unacknowledged does play a part in this idea. Commitments to democracy, freedom and liberty, civilised values and human rights are all under sustained attack by our elites and those in the population stupid enough to believe their propaganda. A blacklist for the use of corporations against private citizens is a corporatist expression of this descent into backwards authoritarianism. And also displays that without intervention corporations have no belief in due process or liberty, in pursuit of holy profit they are resurrecting the witchhunt.
Ten Percent 