It has to be No

Referendum wording means end of neutrality

     
Colm Murphy rejected the claim that he was asking workers to sign on. ``None of my workers are on the dole,'' he said
Over five years ago a Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrat coalition promised 26-County voters £6 billion in EU structural funds if they would ratify the Maastricht Treaty. Together with Fine Gael and Labour they campaigned against the arguments of an underfunded and often ignored No campaign.

The sole arguments then of the Yes campaign were the promise of EU billions and the sanction of possible exclusion from EU markets if we failed to ratify. There was, we were told, `no going back'.

Now nearly six years later 26-County voters face another complex treaty which will erode more of our national sovereignty, pushing us ever closer to an abandonment of our neutrality but also diluting further the democratic rights of Irish people.

The White Paper which will ratify the Amsterdam Treaty was launched this week by Foreign Affairs minister David Andrews. He told reporters that the EU ``belongs to its citizens'' and that ``its priorities must be the priorities of its people. Its functioning must be open and effective. Its institutions must deserve and retain the confidence of the public''.

This sounds good until you actually look at the terms of the treaty. For example, it takes another step into participation in a military alliance where decisions are taken on a majority basis.

There is provision for giving more power to the unelected EU presidency and to a new unelected foreign policy ``supremo''. Alongside this there is an acceptance by Treaty signatories that after the next wave of EU enlargement individual states will lose their right to nominate an EU Commissioner. These are just some of the more obvious deficiencies.

Worse still the referendum wording to ratify the Treaty allows the Dublin Government a carte blanche to take further decisions about involvement in military alignments and engagements without recourse to the much promised but never delivered neutrality referendum.

The Peace and Neutrality Alliance (PANA) held a press conference outlining their objections to the Amsterdam Treaty straight after the government press conference at Iveagh House.

Sinn Féin's Seán Crowe spoke at the conference. He said ``My party stands firmly for Irish national sovereignty. Vital elements of that sovereignty are military neutrality and an independent foreign policy. In this anniversary of 1798 it is ironic that we are being asked by the government to dilute yet again the degree of sovereignty that we have in the 26 Counties''.

Crampton picketers defy High Court

Dundalk subcontractor puts his case to An Phoblacht


Building Workers Against the Black Economy brought its ongoing protest against the Crampton construction company to a Dublin building site for the second time in eight days last week. Last Thursday over 100 building workers from sites across the city picketed a Crampton building site in Stephens Green for two hours. The picket was held without the official backing of the worker's unions and is also in defiance of High Court injunctions.

The Building workers want Cramptons to end its practice of using sub contractors rather than direct labour for its bricklaying contracts. A spokesperson for the workers claimed that the sub contractors were refusing to hire workers within the PAYE system, creating a scenario where workers were without holiday or sick pay as well as pension entitlements and other basic workplace rights.

High-Court statement


Striking workers at a Crampton site in Clonskeagh Dublin had in a statement read to court stated that their employer wanted them to sign on the dole while working on the Clonskeagh sites.

One of the subcontractors, Colm Murphy, who was named in the High Court proceedings and in An Phoblacht two weeks, ago spoke this week to the paper.

Colm Murphy rejected the claim that he was asking workers to sign on. ``None of my workers are on the dole,'' he said. He told An Phoblacht that he had between 40 to 60 workers on his books who are employed ``full-time when the work's there''. Murphy employs 30 to 40 brickies and claimed they were paid ``£75 a day after tax for working from 8am to 5pm''. Some, he said, ``can earn more than that''. Murphy maintained that all his workers are paying PAYE, PRSI.

He said that the dispute at the Clonskeagh site had arisen after he took on some workers on a temporary basis from another contractor. He found their quality of work and time keeping lacking and let them go, ending the agreement with this other contractor. It was then he said that these workers put an unofficial picket on the Clonskeagh site. Murphy said that a second dispute at DCU was ``nothing to do with me''.

Small clique


Throughout the interview Murphy maintained that there was no reason for the Building and Allied Trades Union to be in dispute with him. He said he believed that the union was preventing people who worked with him to get union cards. He said BATU was a ``small clique'' and had ``very few members outside Dublin''. He felt that elements of the union were trying to get him put out of Dublin. Colm Murphy operates out of Dundalk and many of his workers are from the North.

Murphy claimed that the reason he was being used as a subcontractor was because he could ``guarantee the work would be done''. He did not seem concerned that the 1990 Industrial Relations Act was being used to threaten imprisonment on striking workers. ``Unions were set up for a good reason,'' he said, ``but many building workers outside Dublin would have nothing to do with them ``

Nothing wrong


The reason that High Court, the Construction Industry Federation and Cramptons were on his side was because he has done nothing wrong and all his account books show that all his workers were getting proper wages and were paying tax.

Yesterday the building workers picketed Leinster House and were met by a group of TDs including Sinn Féin's Caoimhghin O Caolain. Tonight concerned building workers from across the city are holding a meeting in the ATGWU hall in Dublin's Abbey Street. Speakers will talk on the 1990 Industrial Relations Act as well as the appalling safety record of the Irish Industry which has seen 41 workers lose their lives over the last 36 months.