Schnews report on Scottish & Southern Electricity’s attempted use of a Terrorism Act against a blacklisted electrician:

A judge has dismissed a power company’s attempts to prevent a one-man picket with an injunction under the Terrorism Act as “fanciful and bordering on paranoia”. Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) attempted to suggest that the picket represented a “threat to national security”.

Electrician Steve Acheson was dismissed from from his job at the Fiddlers Ferry power station project in December 2008. Although he was technically made redundant, at the time of his dismissal the firm took on another 300 workers. Since then he’s maintained a regular picket outside the construction site with a banner saying “STOP VICTIMISING UNION WORKERS – END THE BLACKLISTING NOW”

Although the judge in this case called SSE out on their nonsense, the attempt itself shows that companies are ready to take this Act to places where they’ve succesfully used the Prevention of Harrassment Act. If a single picket can be branded a threat to “national security”, what about a whole group of them occupying their factory?

The “blacklisting” referred to is the one run by sleazy voyeur Ian Kerr of “the Consulting Agency” who maintained, illegally and at great profit, a database of more than 3000 workers suspected of union activity. This he sold to every large contractor you could name. Net result: workers reduced to poverty, and an insultingly token fine of £5000 for the spy.

A good source of information on this: The Blacklist Support Group.