Ballybrack Three - Building row must not hit partnership

WHATEVER the rights and wrongs of the case involving the jailing of three Dublin building workers, it has inevitably focused the spotlight on mounting concerns about the competing rights of employers and employees in the Irish workplace.

In a week that saw tens of thousands of workers take to the streets of Strasbourg, Dublin and other cities in protest against what unions see as a cheap labour directive by the EU, the case of the Ballybrack Three is stirring wider arguments.

Essentially, the three men were jailed for contempt of court last Friday after refusing to obey an order restraining them from picketing a building site at Ballybrack in south Dublin. Having failed to get work there, they allege they were discriminated against because they were locals and members of the Building and Allied Trades Union (BATU).

In any reasoned debate on this complex case, it goes without saying that full account must be taken of the company’s emphatic claim that while some of its employees did not wish to be members of BATU, the group had no objections to hiring employees who were in trade unions.

However, wider issues which have no direct bearing on the dispute before the High Court automatically arise, including matters of broad public interest that go beyond the confines of the building site, where 77 local authority houses are under construction.

In the public interest, such matters warrant discussion, especially since they embrace such vexed subjects as pay rates, pension entitlements, the growing trend of using self-employed sub-contractors on building sites, plus the whole question of trade union membership which is preoccupying the minds of employers and workers across Europe.

As witnessed in Strasbourg, trade unions are fearful of what they describe as a “race to the bottom” triggered by the new EU Services Directive.

If passed by MEPs, it would allow firms from cheaper labour markets in Eastern European to set up shop in Ireland, bringing workers here and paying wages that apply at home rather than the prevailing rates in Dublin, Cork or Limerick.

Invariably in this situation references are being made to the Gama controversy, in which Turkish workers were ruthlessly exploited, not to mention the hiring of cheap foreign labour by Irish Ferries.

Undoubtedly, foreign workers are needed to sustain the economy. And there can be little doubt unacceptable employment practices have a dangerous capacity to create a climate where the exploitation of cheap labour could undermine local rates.

But the issues go deeper. In a highly revealing report, the Pensions Ombudsman recently disclosed that 30,000 Irish construction workers were not covered by pensions, life insurance or sick pay because employers were blatantly breaking the law.

Regrettably, the growing practice of categorising workers as self-employed sub-contractors has enabled firms to avoid paying such entitlements.

Ironically, the jailing of the Ballybrack Three brings to mind the imprisonment of the Rossport Five for protesting against Shell’s planned high-pressure pipeline to carry gas from the Corrib Field off the west coast. A national protest campaign against the pipeline project was launched yesterday.

Hopefully, the case of the building workers will be resolved quicker than the ongoing Mayo controversy.

Calls for a national stoppage to get the men out of jail were heard yesterday when protestors took to the streets of Dublin. Doubtless, sympathy exists for their plight. But there should be no question of the unions withdrawing from the national partnership negotiations.