The protest was held to publicly highlight the fact that British Telecom is refusing to give collective bargaining rights to a large group of its staff simply because they are Irish. The company, which runs its business on an all-Ireland basis, deals with the CWU in Northern Ireland and staff there enjoy the benefits of independent collective representation. In recent years staff in the Republic of Ireland have sought equal treatment with their colleagues elsewhere in the business and, through the CWU and internal company mechanisms, they have asked to be given the same right to collective bargaining as their colleagues.

To date the company has refused to honour this legitimate request and in doing so is not only denying staff a basic human right but is doing so on the basis that they are Irish.

BT staff felt the company’s position on this issue was completely unacceptable as it was effectively a form of discrimination. Members wanted to highlight their cause as part of a campaign to try and get management to engage in meaningful dialogue with their Union.

Commenting on the protest the CWU’s Head of Organising, Ian McArdle said ‘The facts in this issue are simple – staff want equal treatment and the right to union representation which their colleagues in Northern Irelandd enjoy. They do not want to be treated like second class citizens simply because they are Irish.’

As part of the campaign the CWU has rented billboard advertisements around Dublin city centre as well as a number of ad mobiles that will be active over the coming weeks with the message – ‘Disconnect Discrimination’. In addition to this the Union is running an email campaign which can be accessed from

 http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=367