It has to be No
Referendum wording means end of neutrality
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Colm Murphy rejected the claim that he was asking
workers to sign on. ``None of my workers are on the
dole,'' he said
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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.
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)