Compensation scheme for listed workers
11 October 2013Eight major construction companies announced a scheme to compensate workers whose names were on The Consulting Association (TCA) database. The practice of listing workers, and thus negatively affecting their reputations, is known colloquially as ‘blacklisting’ in the UK. The debate surrounding the TCA has been prominent in the last year.
The new scheme, The Construction Workers Compensation Scheme, should make it as simple as possible for "any worker with a legitimate claim to access compensation", the companies announced in joint statements.
The eight companies: Balfour Beatty, Carillion, Costain, Kier, Laing O'Rourke, Sir Robert McAlpine, Skanska UK and Vinci, all apologised in the statements for their involvement with TCA and the impact that its database may have had on any individual construction worker.
The companies' statement added, "Worker representatives have been invited to enter into a period of engagement to ensure that the proposed terms of the scheme are fair and attentive... The companies involved in the scheme would support the introduction of a code of conduct to ensure nothing like this can happen within the construction industry again."
The statements noted that TCA was closed in 2009, and a large number of construction companies were subscribers to, or users of the database.
