Righting Inequalities in Northern Ireland

The cities of Cleveland and New York passed laws this spring tying city contracts to the MacBride principles for fair employment in Northern Ireland. The selective contracting laws bar firms that are not implementing the anti-discrimination principles from receiving city contracts.

The MacBride principles are a set of nine principles, inspired by the Sullivan principles for companies with operations in South Africa, which are aimed at fighting religious discrimination in employment in Northern Ireland. The principles call for affirmative action and equal opportunity measures such as banning sectarian emblems in the workplace, increasing minority representation in the workforce and providing security to protect minority employees. The principles are intended to function as a code of conduct to be voluntarily adopted by U.S. companies which operate in Northern Ireland.

Longstanding political tensions between Northern Irish Catholics and Protestants have escalated since the 1969 emergence of a civil rights movement among Northern Catholics. This group has been victimized by systematic discrimination since 1920 (when Ireland was partitioned into an independent republic with a Catholic majority and the British province of Northern Ireland in which Catholics are a minority), but over the last 20 years they have begun to demand equal rights with the Protestant majority, including the right to the same job opportunities. Sectarian conflict, exacerbated by a British military presence whose anti-terrorism activities have often been criticized for violating civil and human rights and for being aimed predominantly at the Catholic community, has resulted in almost 3,000 deaths over the past twenty years.

Historically, political tensions in Northern Ireland have been tied to the economic situation, with Protestant dominance maintained through employment discrimination. Rising levels of unemployment--up from 5.8 percent in 1971 to 14 percent in 1990- -have intensified the debate over the disparity between the employment rates of the two communities. Throughout the shifts in employment levels, Catholics have remained about twice as likely to be unemployed as Protestants.

The MacBride principles evolved out of efforts on the part of Irish American groups to address issues of discrimination that were not being resolved by the 1976 Fair Employment Act. The final form of the principles, named after Sean MacBride, a founder of Amnesty International and a former chief of staff of the nationalist Irish Republican Army (IRA), were developed in 1984 in the office of the New York City comptroller. Irish- American organizations, in particular the Irish National Caucus (INC), have waged an intensive campaign to promote the principles and to make fair employment a political issue in Northern Ireland. Fifteen U.S. companies (out of 54 operating in the province) have agreed to implement the principles, and 14 states and 20 local governments have passed legislation related to them.

Critics of the principles, including the British government, have several complaints about the code. Most often cited is the claim that the principles have become unnecessary since the passage of stronger fair employment legislation in 1989. Andy Henderson of the British Embassy says that the principles are merely a "set of slogans" that are "vague and unworkable" and serve only as an "unnecessary additional burden on companies."

Father Sean McManus, director of the INC, dismisses the idea that the 1989 law will lessen discrimination in Northern Ireland and points to the ineffectiveness of earlier laws. In September 1991, a Ford spokesperson admitted that the company failed to follow the recommendations of the 1976 Fair Employment Act that it monitor and maintain records of the religious composition of its workforce until a boycott of Ford products organized by Irish-Americans compelled the company to do so. McManus says that the MacBride campaign has been effective in reversing discrimination because it is dependent upon economic imperatives and not "on the good faith of the British government."

Heidi Welsh of the Investor Responsibility Research Center (IRRC), a Washington D.C.-based organization that recently conducted a study on the effect of the MacBride principles, points out that the "public pressure put on the British government" as a result of the MacBride campaign was "very important in strengthening [affirmative action provisions of] the Fair Employment Act." Welsh says that it is too early to tell if the new law, which went into effect in 1990, will be more effective than the 1976 legislation.

Welsh says that the principles and the campaign "in some ways have to be separated," since most critics object more to the principles' supporters than to the principles themselves. The campaign has been waged primarily by Irish-American groups with a strong republican affiliation and the only political party in Northern Ireland that has come out in favor of the principles is Sinn Fein, the political arm of the IRA. Welsh says that the Thatcher government viewed the campaign as an attempt to destabilize the economy of Northern Ireland, one of the objectives of the IRA.

The British embassy's Henderson confirms Welsh's view, saying, "In essence we have no differences" with the principles; the "problem is with the campaign to impose them." Arguing that "what Northern Ireland needs above all is new jobs," he worries that "Northern Ireland has a bad enough image as it is" and that the MacBride principles will be seen by companies as yet another reason to take their business elsewhere.

McManus says that the charges of economic destabilization are "utter nonsense." INC efforts represent "an absolutely positive campaign to actually change discrimination practices," he states, noting that no call has been made for divestment.

There are questions about the effectiveness of the principles themselves. IRRC's report "The MacBride Principles and U.S. Companies in Northern Ireland 1991" asserts that many U.S. companies are not looking to the principles for guidelines on fair employment (including some of the 15 companies that say they are implementing the principles) and that many managers have little concrete sense of what the code calls for. McManus believes, however, that the principles and "the MacBride campaign have changed for all times anti-Catholic discrimination" because "every employer in Northern Ireland knows" that fair employment practices "are under constant scrutiny."

- Holley Knaus

Dumping on Native Americans

Not In My Backyard is an increasingly common cry being voiced by Native American communities that waste contracting firms are soliciting to accept trash dumps.

In the Dzilth-Na-O-Dith-Hle or Huerfano mountain area of New Mexico, for example, a Navajo community is fighting a proposed ten-year permit for an asbestos burial ground on the outskirts of their land. The permit would allow Insulation Contractors Unlimited, Inc. (ICU) to bury 36,500 cubic yards of asbestos a year.

"They don't understand asbestos," ICU's Shaun Adams says of residents of the affected area. "If it is properly disposed of, it's not dangerous or hazardous."

The land on which ICU plans to build is considered sacred by the Navajo. In a letter to the New Mexico Environmental Department, Charles Sylvester, a member of Concerned Citizens of Dzilth-Na- O-Dith-Hle, states that "The holiness that this area represents to the Navajo is immeasurable. To propose a hazardous 'special waste' dump nearby is sacrilege."

Citizens Against Ruining our Environment (CARE), a small Native American environmental group, has been helping the residents of Dzilth-Na-O-Dith-Hle organize against ICU. Formed in 1988 in reaction to a proposed toxic waste incinerator in Dilkon, Arizona, CARE has expanded its campaign to help Native American groups throughout the United States fight the waste disposal industry.

CARE charges that ICU is an especially bad company to rely on to maintain a waste dump safely. CARE spokeswoman Lori Goodman says that after digging through financial records, CARE found ICU to be financially unstable. "We are currently demanding a financial audit, but we also have reason to believe that ICU may be illegally dumping at their other sites," she says.

The Dzil th-Na-O-Di th-Hle case is not unique. A CARE report, compiled with the help of Greenpeace, lists more than 30 Native American communities which have been approached by waste companies seeking to use their land in exchange for jobs and money. Unaware of the long-term consequences of waste incineration or burial, many tribal councils are lured into deals which will have detrimental effects upon future generations. Companies such as Waste Management and WasteTech Services, Inc, a subsidiary of Amoco Oil Company, find these lands desirable because they are not subject to the same state and federal regulations as non-Native lands. Now, however, industry is finding that many communities are fighting back.

In June 1991, Native American and environmental activists gathered in the Black Hills of South Dakota for the second "Protecting Mother Earth" conference addressing the issue of Native lands being used as dumping grounds. CARE presented a project at the conference called "Protecting Mother Earth: The Toxic Threat to Indian Land," designed to educate communities in order to prevent companies such as ICU from taking advantage of Native Americans.

"Communities need someone to explain how these companies operate. They don't need someone in a three-piece suit telling them what to do. They find officials intimidating," says Goodman. As part of the project, CARE has produced a booklet which combines a history of CARE and of the continued exploitation of Native Americans with a resource guide of people and organizations to contact for help in fighting to stop waste projects.

CARE's work in fighting proposed dumps is an important step in combating waste dumping in Native lands. However, the real solution to the Native Americans' problems will ultimately require the enactment of strict regulations for the use of Native land. "Needless to say, we are working on changing the guidelines, but we do not [yet] have the resources to do it," says Goodman. Until then, she says, "we are just putting out fires."

- Ann Wei