Backing for brickies

by David Lynch 16/02/2006

Trade unions were yesterday urged to withdraw from social partnership talks with the Irish government.
The call was made at a Dublin rally attended by hundreds of people in support of three jailed bricklayers.
Andrew Clarke, Keith Kelly and Billy McClurg were imprisoned last week for taking part in a protest at a building site in Ballybrack, Co Dublin.
The men began their protest earlier this month at the Laurel Avenue site amid claims that Collen Construction and its subcontractors were refusing to employ trade union members. The company rejects this claim.
The company is building 70 new homes for Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council.
Tony Flanagan, another Dublin bricklayer, told yesterday’s demonstration that the Irish Congress of Trade Unions should enter no more talks with the government while the three men were in prison.
“These men are languishing in a mouldy prison where they shouldn’t be,” he said.
Independent TD Séamus Healy said: “I want to see the injunction lifted immediately and the men released.
“Also, there should be no talks — partnership or otherwise — by the trade union movement with the government or Ibec [Irish Business and Employers Confederation] until that happens.
“It should be a precondition of those talks that these men are released.
“These are three trade unionists who have been jailed unjustly for fighting for union rights and they should be released. The trade union movement needs to fight to get these men out of jail immediately.”
Relatives of the three men claim the three bricklayers had not been given a job because they were members of the Building and Allied Trades Union.
The families say the three men started the protest at the site in defence of trade union rights and “proper labour standards”.
There was a strong showing of support at Parnell Square yesterday from many bricklayers who had left their work to take part in the protest.
Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins told the protesters: “This morning I confronted the Taoiseach across the floor of the Dáil on this issue.
“I pointed out to him how the Pensions Ombudsman, just a few days ago, said that up to 120,000 construction workers are being deprived of their pension rights by construction bosses, who will not sign them up to the legal obligations of the pension scheme.
“I pointed out that the Pensions Ombudsman said that it was a criminal offence and the construction bosses who were guilty of it could face jail or fines or both.
“I then asked the Taoiseach directly: Do you know one name of one construction boss who has spent one hour of one day in jail for this criminal negligence for over 100,000 building workers?
“And I told him he couldn’t because it never happened. And then I said: How could we have three bricklayers who go on a site to protest for their trade union rights and for their pension rights and within days they are dragged in front of the High Court and the they are put in prison?”
The People Before Profit group, which organised the protest, said there would be pickets on Collen Construction sites in Dublin.
There will be a protest in the People’s Park in Dún Laoghaire at 2pm on Saturday.