Brian Higgins

Brian Higgins (1940/41 – June 2019) was a Scottish bricklayer and trade union official. He moved to Northampton, England, for work and became involved in the socialist Revolutionary Democratic Group and the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians. Because of his activities in picketing construction sites during disputes Higgins was blacklisted and was unable to find work from 1981.

The existence of the blacklist was exposed by the Information Commissioner's Office in 2009 and Higgins found that his file, running to 49 pages, was the longest on the list. It also showed that he had been subject to undercover investigation by the Metropolitan Police. Higgins afterwards worked to bring anti-blacklisting laws before the European Parliament and gave evidence to the Undercover Policing Inquiry.

Personal life Higgins was born in Glasgow in 1940/41, the second of seven children of Mary and Dan Higgins. He met Helen Cobain at Rothesay in 1966 and they married in 1968.

Construction and blacklisting During his work in construction as a bricklayer, Higgins became involved with trade union activities, particularly in ensuring that health and safety standards were met. In this role he helped to organise flying pickets. Higgins organised pickets at a large construction firm's site in Northampton in 1975 after a dispute. The union won the dispute but Higgins believes it led him to be added to a blacklist of "troublemakers" in the industry. Blacklisting is illegal in the UK but for decades construction companies used the list to screen potential workers. As a result of his blacklisting Higgins found it harder to find work and found he was unable to work in the industry at all from 1981; being supported on the wage of his wife until his retirement in 2006. He also served as branch secretary for the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians (UCATT) and helped to provide care for his grandson. He spoke about the dispute and protest at a 4 March 1986 Red Action meeting; thanking the group for supporting the picket and talking about his plans to contravene the injunction. The meeting had been infiltrated by an undercover Metropolitan Police officer who passed a report back to the security service MI5. As he lay dying in a hospital bed he hallucinated that the rails around his bed were dangerous scaffolding and spoke to advise workers to stop works. He died before the Undercover Policing Inquiry had completed and made its report. In a Scottish Parliament speech after Higgins' death MSP Neil Findlay called him a "working-class hero".