JON SILBERMAN reports. THE theme of the conIerence will be emnlovment discrimination and its conCatholics heavily discriminated against in all kinds of employment in the Six Counties. A Catholic is two-and-a-half times more likely to be unemployed Inan a protestant. Carnonc women, one-and-a-half times more so In the unionised to nomploters vice sord Brookborough fifty years ago to wherever possible employ lads ladies' still lolower Compared to a 40:60 ratio of Catholics to Protestants in the population GROWING support is being registered for the trade union conference Ireland: the cause of labour?'. The conference was initiated by the Labour Committee on Ireland and will be held in London's Camden Centre on 28 November, and has now won broad sponsorship.
of the Six Counties, the employment ratio is 12:80 in the car industry, 16:77 general mechanical engineering, 20:74 in instrument engineering and 22:70 in other metals. In textiles, the ratio is 24:69.
A fringe meeting at the recent AEU National Committee was told by Ernie Walker, president of the Sheffield district, that such statistics had been in the past considered 'hot potato' discussion around them had Dee stifled. West London district MICk Martin, told the same meeting that beneath such bare statistics lay real people's lives. •Unemployment is verv high tor all workers he said, which meant that such discrimination gives unemployment rates predominantl Calone areas such as West Belfast as high as 80 per cent. Mick Martin reminded the the firm of Short's which had been highlighted recently in the media following exposures in the US.
In Short's, overwhelmingly the largest factory in the Six Counties, where British unions like the AEU and TASS have substantial membership, the employers permit Orange parades and loyalist regalia to be displayed. The work bays at Short's are dominated by huge orange arch.
In the publicity material for the the Olcauses explain that religious discrimination is worse not better despite the passing of Fair Employment legislation more inan ten years ago This because the ORGA 1-50 badges: 25p each 50-100 badges: zup each 100 plus badges: 15p each.
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Aberdeen Birmingham Bristol 'background to religious discrimination is the 1922 partition of ireland impos ed against the wishes of the Irish continue that when 'the civil ties was batoned off the SLICES by notoriously bigotted constabulary, catholics saa majority of Irish re-unification as the ty could be sion. is vien is shared by the majority of Irish trade unionists.
The conference will provide Irish trade unionists, north all opportunity for and south, to speak out, for British unionists to consider what action this situation demands.
The AEU National Committee fringe meeting was nignly successiul, al tracting the participation of a quarter of the delegates Fringe meetings are planned at other major union conferences this summer. Speakers from the conference organising commitaddressed two fringe meetings at the NUT conference and a meeting at the Scottish TUC attracted 60 people.
A wide range of trade leaders have sponsored the conterence• Pete Heathfield » Inez McCor Ken Gill (TASS Inez mack (NUPE), Alan Sapper (ÀCTT), the Cutle membership executive including its presitionally, the conference has dent. Atall. rosendo been backed by the Campaign Group of Labour MPs, Labour Coordinating Committee, Labour Party Black Section, Labour Left Liaison, Communist Party, Communist Campaign • Group, and a range of Labour MPs.
• Literature, and other information, Treland: the cause of labour?' BM Box 5335, London WCIN
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