From: Eugene McElroy <emcelroy@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: alt.activism
Date: 05 Sep 92 08:52 PDT
Subject: Time to Loosen Organge Grip on Unio
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1296500332:000:12016
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!emcelroy    Sep  5 08:52:00 1992


From: Eugene McElroy <emcelroy>
Subject: Time to Loosen Organge Grip on Unions

              TIME TO LOOSEN ORANGE GRIP ON UNIONS
                           **********
(In this addition of An Phoblacht/Republican News-August 27,
1992-we examine the seriousness and effectiveness of the trade
union movement in its attitude and initiatives in helping to
reduce the deliberately structured chronic unemployment situation
in Northern Ireland and its contribution in real terms to ending
religious discrimination in the workplace.)
                           ***********

     The make-up of the workforce in such places as the Harland
and Wolff shipyard, the Sirocco works, and Shorts have all been
well documented before and the 96, 100 and 95 percent Protestant
composition in these firms respectively have long been the norm,
despite the introduction of various 'fair employment' bodies over
the last 22 years or so.
     These, and other firms, have been heavily unionized but the
imbalance in the make-up of the workforces show that the
Protestant ethos of 'Protestant jobs for Protestant people'
remained largely undisturbed by the trade union movement,
certainly at factory floor level where unions are at their most
powerful.
     Discrimination and intimidation existed in all types of
employment where the workforces were heavily unionized as the
following examples show:
     Olympia Leisure Centre was closed because Protestant trade
unionists refused to work with a Catholic; Catholic workers at
Housing Executive offices were forced to leave their jobs;
Catholic workers at Shorts were intimidated inside the factory
with threats written on their time cards; Shorts was brought to a
standstill because management ordered workers to remove a display
of sectarian bunting; Catholic workers at Shorts were named and
warned not to come back; Catholics were intimidated from Unipork,
Portadown; GEC Larne allowed an Orange band to parade around its
factory; Catholic workers at Lisburn Leisure Centre received
death threats; N.I. Electricity workers took action because they
were not allowed to display sectarian bunting at the place of
work; Mackies' workers (in West Belfast) too action because they
were not allowed to display sectarian bunting.
     Many trade unionist and their leaders are members of the
Orange Order, an openly sectarian organization pledged to further
the interests of Protestants at the expense of Catholics. And
while the trade union movement in Northern Ireland has supported
actions against discrimination in South Africa, which have
included the use of the boycott, no such initiatives have been
instigated here and discrimination is still practiced with
impunity.
     No real effort has been made by the trade union movement to
bring about a fairer distribution of jobs and trade union leaders
have shirked their responsibility by claiming it is all the
employers' fault. Cases such as the recent court decision
involving the Belfast Docks employers expose the true involvement
of some trade unions in sustaining religious discrimination.
     In this case one of the largest trade unions, the
Amalgamated Transport and General Workers Union (ATGWU), was
found at the Court of Appeal to be acting as an effective hiring
agency and constituted a hidden but effective barrier to Catholic
recruitment. In fact one of the successful Protestant applicants
had been in jail at the time when experienced Catholic dockers
were not being considered for interview! After the Court of
Appeal ruling there was no statement from the ATGWU that the old
rules no longer applied. The ATGWU has a full-time official on
the Fair Employment Commission.
     While no doubt there are many full-time trade union
officials at district, regional and national level committed to
good trade union anti-discrimination policies, it is in
transferring those policies into practice at the workplaces that
the greatest resistance to equality of opportunity is
experienced. It is when this difficulty arises that the trade
union movement has been found wanting.
     While the General Secretary of the ATGWU Ron Todd was saying
in May 1991 that "We either stand on the sidelined or we take
positive action", his Regional Secretary in Northern Ireland,
John Freeman was saying that "The Union had considered the
dangers of going on the offensive against sectarianism."
     This danger John Freeman was obviously alluding to was the
danger of the bigots in the movement tearing up their membership
cards and leaving, thus seriously weakening the financial base of
the ATGWU. The question here for the unions which they must
honestly address is, do they want sectarian bigots dictating how
they should act--or not act--on the fundamental rights of
workers?
     This question is not being asked by trade union leaders such
as John Freeman who instead continue to indulge in double talk on
the fair employment issue. At the Biennial Delegates Conference
in 1989 he was reported as stating that there was nothing wrong
with the internationally recognized fair employment MacBride
Principles, yet later personally wrote to Governor Peter Wilson
of California asking him to veto the MacBride legislation which
had already been passed by the State Assembly.
     The extent to which some trade unionists will go to mislead
those interested in fighting discrimination is shown in a meeting
between the Investment Resource Research Centre, a Washington-
based organization contracted to monitor the employment practices
at many US firms operating in Northern Ireland and shop stewards
at the Hughes Tool factory at Castlereagh in East Belfast. The
shop stewards told to IRRC that they would never work in Catholic
West Belfast.
     "It is not done to work on the other side. You can't get
people to go from one area to another, you just can't do it. It
is a closed shop on one side." Some of the shop stewards, who
were mostly Protestant, said that "even if they were paid 1,000
pounds sterling a day they would not work in West Belfast."
     This type of lie should be nailed by the trade union
movement and can be done so by using the Ford example, where the
majority of the workers and shop stewards are Protestant and not
from West Belfast, where the factory is actually situated. Some
of these shop stewards in Ford are also members of the Orange
Order, notably Ford's Belfast convener, Ray Kelly of the
Amalgamated Engineering Union, AUE, and Ford senior
representative for staff, Robert Graham, Manufacturing, Science
and Finance (MSF).
     Graham is Deputy Master of the Loyal Orange Lodge 490. These
are the type of union representatives employees are supposed to
go in discrimination cases!
     So the reality is that Protestants are quite willing to come
to work in West Belfast and any trade union, in this case the
AUE, that says different is doing so to try and justify the
imbalance in their own workplaces and to hide the bigotry in
their own ranks.
     The other aspect of this false argument is that the
employment imbalance are due to the fact that Catholics are
unwilling to travel to areas where jobs are because of
intimidation and fear of attack. This ignores the long history of
structural discrimination which has kept economic development out
of nationalist districts. Intimidation is an essential part of
the discrimination process itself, wherever the jobs are located.
     The AUE, like all trade unions, profess to be non-sectarian
but an examination of where they hold their branch meetings,
including Orange and Masonic Halls (no-go areas for Catholics)
exposes how an anti-Catholic attitude prevails over their trade
union principles.
     Below are listed some of the venues of AUE Branch meetings
in the greater Belfast area. All members are invited to attend.
Each of these meeting places are known to be used by Orange and
Loyalist groups. 
     The question to the AUE here is, if you were a Catholic, or
progressive worker of any background, would you feel free to
attend union branch meetings in these venues?

*Hamilton Memorial Hall, Finaghy, Belfast 10, Dunmurray.
(Featured in Channel 4 'Dispatches' program as meeting place for
the 'Inner Circle' of RUC/UDR/UDA planning murder of lawyer Pat
Finucane.) *{RUC is the Royal Ulster Constabulary or in other
words the N.I. Police, the UDR is the Ulster Defense Regiment the
equivalent of the U.S National Guard and the UDA is the Ulster
Defense Association, a loyalist death squad recently outlawed by
the Secretary of State in N.I. for its involvement in the murder
of hundreds of Catholics. These groups often have an overlapping
membership and often act in collusion with one another, one
example being the murder of Catholic lawyer Pat Finucane. eugene)

*Argyle Band Room, Lawnbrook Avenue, Belfast 13. (Used by the
Shankill Butchers) {The Shankill Butchers were a group who went
on to become the biggest mass murderers in the history of the
U.K. At least thirty murders have been traced to them, most of
them innocent Catholics kidnapped at random off the streets. They
got their nicknamed because of the horrible tortures and
mutilations they committed on their victims, included
decapitation. Many of the murders were planned, and a few
actually carried out, in the Argyle.eugene}.

*Good Templars Hall, My Lady's Road, Belfast 6, Creagh.

*Purdy Memorial Hall, Chevoit Avenue, Belfast 4.

*Ainsworth Community Centre, Mayo Stree, Belfast 13.

*The Church Hall, Riga Street, Belfast 13.

*Andrews Memorial Hall, Millviews, Comber, Newtownards.

*Community Centre, Ainsworth Avenue, Belfast-Glencairn.

*Dufferin Memorial Hall, Hamilton Road, Bangor.

*Orange Hall, Albert Road, Carrickfergus, Antrim.

(for American readers: it would require a knowledge of the
political geography of Northern Ireland to understand the
significance of most of these addresses. Those who are familiar
need no explanation as to why Catholics would not feel safe
travelling to or meeting in these Loyalist areas. eugene.) 
     
     As the above shows, one of the most basic elements in trade
union membership, that of an opportunity to meet, free from the
threat of intimidation, is continually denied to a significant
proportion of AUE members.

     It is apparent that Ireland is still the 'taboo' subject in
the trade union movement, because of the belief that the majority
of workers are loyalists first and foremost and any talk of real
equality may result in the erosion of their relatively privileged
position and loss of membership and revenue.
     Proper debate on the subject of the trade union movement in
the North of Ireland has been stifled, with the recommendations
to defer motions back to 'Northern Ireland' committees where they
disappear. The trade union leadership in the North advocate a "We
live over there, we know best how to handle this, leave it with
us" attitude. But what must be recognized is that giving into
bigotry in the trade unions in the North weakens the entire trade
union movement in Ireland, preventing it from addressing issues
of civil liberties, sectarian discrimination, economic
sovereignty and national self-determination and from representing
its members. It is in the interest of the mass of trade union
members to advance these issues. In the long run it is also in
the interest of Protestant workers to see a strong Irish trade
union movement working in the interest of the majority of the
national labour force and alongside the growing army of
unemployed. For too long the trade union movement has allowed
itself to be held ransom by sectional, sectarian interests.
                           **********

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                            *********
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