BLACKLISTED workers hit the roof last night as a former undercover cop revealed that his spying activities stretched to four unions outside the construction industry.

Peter Francis, a former agent with the notorious Metropolitan Police Special Demonstration Squad, told a meeting in Parliament late on Thursday night that he had spied on public-sector workers — firefighters, teachers and postmen — as part of his undercover duties.

Police are known to have collaborated with a right-wing bosses’ cartel in a huge blacklisting operation in the construction industry —
but until now allegations of union infiltration have largely been confined to that industry.

In a statement read out by Labour MP John McDonnell at the launch of the new book Blacklisted, Mr Francis said he wished to “unreservedly apologise to all the union members I personally spied upon and reported back on whilst deployed undercover in the SDS.”

He said that members of the National Union of Teachers (NUT), the Communication Workers Union (CWU), Unison and the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) as well as the National Union of Students (NUS) had been targeted.

And he urged politicians to ensure the conspirators were brought to justice.
“The forthcoming Home Secretary’s public inquiry into undercover policing must include a forensic, independent (in other words, non-police) examination into all the blacklisting files compiled by the Consulting Association and then cross-reference them with corresponding Special Branch individual activists’ records to look at the areas of collusion,” he wrote.

“There will be multiple duplicates. Of that I have no doubt at all.”

Last week it was revealed that SDS officer Mark Jenner had been sent into builders’ union Ucatt.

The Met deployed its standard “neither confirm nor deny” policy — but Mr Francis said that Mr Jenner was “100 per cent one of my fellow undercover SDS police officers.”

He said Mr Jenner “should be forced to appear in person at the public inquiry to account for his spying.”

Blacklisted engineer Dave Smith, the co-author of the book, said that “coercive arms of the state” saw their role as supporting big business.

“Trade unions and peaceful campaign groups are viewed as the enemy,” he raged.

“Blacklisting is not just in construction, it is endemic across UK industry from NHS whistleblowers, airlines, North Sea, retail and railways.”

Joining calls for a public inquiry, Unison general secretary Dave Prentis blasted: “The revelation that union members were spied on by undercover police officers simply because they belonged to a union is shocking.

“Being in a union is not a crime and this dirty secret is just the latest in a long list of attacks on unions and their members.”

CWU general secretary Billy Hayes said: “Once again the secret state is revealed. It seems trade union activists are still the enemy within.

“More transparency on such matters would perhaps have avoided some of many miscarriages of justice, including Hillsborough and the Jimmy Savile cases. We need a full public inquiry to address the blacklisting scandal.”
Officers of the now disbanded SDS have come under fire for their tactic of sleeping with their targets to gain information.

Some cops entered long term-relationships and even had children with activists.
conradlandin@peoples-press.com