There are 69 United States companies
(with over 9 employees) doing business
in Northern Ireland and many of them —
because of the systematic practice and
endemic nature of anti-Catholic
discrimination — had been subsidizing
discrimination. (However, since the
MacBride Campaign began, 58 companies
have agreed to "make all lawful efforts
to implement the fair employment
practices embodied in the MacBride
Principles" in their Northern Ireland
operations).
Systematic Discrimination
Since the British government
undemocratically and violently created
the State of Northern Ireland in 1920,
Catholics have been discriminated
against in almost every way,
particularly in employment. All their
many protests failed because the
effectiveness of protests depended on
the good faith of previous British
governments. That good faith was not
there (I make an exception for the
current British Government, led by Prime
Minister Tony Blair).
What was needed, therefore, was a
campaign that did not depend on the good
faith of the British government, but on
the fairness of the American people and
the leverage of their investment and
purchasing dollars... Hence, the
MacBride Principles. The Principles were
initiated, proposed and launched by the
Irish National Caucus in November 1984.
The MacBride Principles
The MacBride Principles — consisting of
nine fair employment principles — are a
corporate code of conduct for U.S.
Companies doing business in Northern
Ireland and have become the
Congressional standard for all U.S. aid
to, or economic dealings with, Northern
Ireland. The Principles do not call for
quotas, reverse discrimination,
divestment (the withdrawal of U.S.
Companies from Northern Ireland) or
disinvestment (the withdrawal of funds
now invested in firms with operations in
Northern Ireland). The Caucus positively
encourages non-discriminatory U.S.
investment in Northern Ireland.
The MacBride Campaign is conducted on a
three-fold level:
(1) Federal- The MacBride Principles
became the law of the U.S. in October
1998. The U.S. House and Senate passed
the MacBride Principles -- as part of
the Omnibus Appropriations Act for
Fiscal Year 1999 -- and President
Clinton signed them into law. The
MacBride law mandates that recipients of
U.S. contributions to the International
Fund for Ireland (IFI) must be in
compliance with the MacBride Principles.
(The U.S. has been contributing about
$19.6 million per year since 1986 to the
IFI.)
(2) State and Cities- Millions of
dollars in State and City pension and
retirement funds are invested in
American corporations doing business in
Northern Ireland. The MacBride Campaign
lobbies to have legislation passed to
direct these funds to be invested, in
the future, only in companies that
endorse the Principles (again, note, not
divestment or disinvestments). This is
the first step. The second step — once
the MacBride Principles investment law
has been passed — is to get a contract
compliance law passed.
(3) Shareholder Resolutions- The
Campaign works to have Shareholders pass
resolutions endorsing the Principles.
Impressive Support for Campaign
The MacBride Principles have been passed
in the following 18 States:
Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maine,
Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota,
Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, New
Hampshire, New Jersey, New York,
Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas,
Vermont and California .
The Principles have been passed or
endorsed by over 40 Cities, and are
pending in many more.
The Principles have been endorsed by the
following organizations or individuals:
the Irish Government:
-
The Reverend Jesse Jackson; Randall
Robinson of Trans Africa — the group
that sponsored Nelson Mandela’s
visit to the United States
-
New York State Governor George
Pataki
-
Former New York State Governor Mario
Cuomo
-
New York City Mayor Rudolth Giuliani
-
Former New York City Mayor David
Dinkins
-
Former Boston Mayor Raymond Flynn
(and former Ambassador to the
Vatican)
-
The AFL-CIO; the National Council of
Churches
-
The American Baptist Convention
-
The Episcopal Church
-
The Lutheran Pension Board
-
The United Church of Christ Board of
World Ministries
-
The United Methodist Church
-
Many U.S. Catholic bishops
-
And by virtually all Irish-American
organizations.
The MacBride Principles have been the
most effective American campaign on
Ireland since Partition. It has provided
Irish-Americans with a direct,
meaningful and non-violent means of
addressing discrimination in Northern
Ireland. No longer does one hear the
British Government or others telling
Irish-Americans to “mind their own
business.” It is our business to mind
what our investment dollars and foreign
aid are doing in Northern Ireland.
The MacBride Principles are non-violent,
morally correct, politically effective
and our duty as responsible investors.
The
author is President of the Irish
National Caucus (INC). The INC is the
Irish Lobby on Capitol Hill, Washington,
D.C. It is non-violent and
non-sectarian. It has no foreign
principal and does not support, morally
or financially, any group or party in
any part of Ireland. It does not send
money to Ireland. All its funds are
raised and spent in the United States.
THE MacBride PRINCIPLES – The List
initiated, proposed, and launched by
the Irish National Caucus in November
1984
(Amplifications issued by Sean MacBride
in 1986 appear in plain text)
(1) Increasing the representation of
individuals, from underrepresented
religious groups in the workforce,
including managerial, supervisory,
administrative, clerical, and technical
jobs.
A workforce that is severely unbalanced
may indicate prima facie that full
equality of opportunity is not being
afforded all segments of the community
in Northern Ireland. Each signatory to
the MacBride Principles must make every
reasonable lawful effort to increase the
representation of underrepresented
religious groups at all levels of its
operations in Northern Ireland.
(2) Adequate security for the
protection of minority employees at the
workplace.
While total security can be guaranteed
nowhere today in Northern Ireland, each
signatory to the MacBride Principles
must make reasonable good faith efforts
to protect workers against intimidation
and physical abuse at the workplace.
Signatories must also make reasonable
good faith efforts to ensure that
applicants are not deterred from seeking
employment because of fear for their
personal safety at the workplace.
(3) Banning provocative sectarian or
political emblems from the workplace.
Each signatory to the MacBride
Principles must make reasonable good
faith efforts to prevent the display of
provocative sectarian emblems at their
plants in Northern Ireland.
(4) Providing that all job openings be
advertised publicly and providing that
special recruitment efforts be made to
attract applicants from underrepresented
religious groups.
Signatories to the MacBride Principles
must exert special efforts to attract
employment applications from
the sectarian community that is
substantially underrepresented in the
workforce. This should not be construed
to imply a diminution of opportunity for
other applicants.
(5) Providing that layoff, recall and
termination procedures do not favor a
particular religious group,
Each signatory to the MacBride
Principles must make reasonable good
faith efforts to ensure that layoff,
recall and termination procedures do not
penalize religious groups
disproportionately. Layoff and
termination practices that involve
seniority solely can result in
discrimination against a particular
religious group if the bulk of employees
with greatest seniority are
disproportionately from another
religious group.
(6) Abolishing job reservations,
apprenticeships restrictions and
differential employment criteria which
discriminate on the basis of religion,
Signatories to the MacBride Principles
must make reasonable good faith efforts
to abolish all differential employment
criteria whose effect is discrimination
on the basis of religion. For example,
job reservations and apprenticeship
regulations that favor relatives of
current of former employees can, in
practice, promote religious
discrimination if the company's
workforce has historically been
disproportionately drawn from another
religious group.
(7) Providing for the development of
training programs that will prepare
substantial numbers of minority
employees for skilled jobs, including
the expansion of existing programs and
the creation of new programs to train,
upgrade and improve the skills of
minority employees,
This does not imply that such programs
should not be open to all members of the
workforce equally.
(8) Establishing procedures to assess,
identify and actively recruit minority
employees with the potential for further
advancement,
This section does not imply that such
procedures should not apply to all
employee equally.
(9) Providing for the appointment of a
senior management staff member to be
responsible for the employment efforts
of the entity and, within a reasonable
period of time, the implementation of
the principles described above.
In addition to the above, each signatory
to the MacBride Principles is required
to report annually to an independent
monitoring agency on its progress in the
implementation of these Principles.
Cities and Counties :
The following Cities and Counties have
passed MacBride Principles Legislation:
Albany County*(NY)
Baltimore (MD)
Binghamton (NY)
Boston (MA)
Burlington (UT)
Chicago (IL)
Cleveland* (OH)
Detroit (MI)
Hartford (CT)
Kansas City (MO)
Lackawanna County (PA)
Monroe, Orange City (NY)
Minneapolis (MN)
New Haven (CT)
New York* (NY)
Omaha (NE)
Philadelphia (PA)
Philadelphia (PA)
Rensselaer* (NY)
Rochester* (NY)
San Francisco (CA)
Scranton* (PA)
Saint Louis (MO)
Saint Paul (MN)
Springfield (MA)
Tucson (AZ)
Washington (DC)
Wilmington (DE)
(*Denotes cities that have also passed
contract compliance legislation on the
MacBride Principles)
The Following Cities and Counties have
passed resolutions endorsing the
MacBride Principles:
Bucks City (PA)
Bridgeport (CT)
Cambridge (MA)
Carbondale (PA)
Chicago (IL)
Honolulu (HI)
Lawrence (MA)
Nashua (NH)
Orangetown (NY)
Portland (ME)
Providence (RI)
Rockland County (NY)
Union City (NJ)
West Caldwell (NJ)
Westchester County (NY)
Worcester (MA)
Yonkers (NY)
Internationally:
The Irish Government; the British Labor
Party
Major sections of the British and Irish
trade union movements
Nobel Peace Prize Winner and co-founder
of the Peace People,
Mairead Corrigan of Belfast
Religious Leaders, Organizations and
Pension Funds:
American Baptist
Convention
American Baptist Churches, USA
Archdiocese of Manchester, New Hampshire
Archdiocese of New York
Cardinal
O'Connor
Christian Brothers Investment Services
Church Women
United
Episcopal Church in America
Florida Catholic
Conference
Franciscan Friars
Interfaith Center for Corporate
Responsibility
Leadership Conference of Religious Women
(a coalition of 250 Protestant and
Catholic denominations)
Lutheran Pension Board
National Council of Churches
Oblate
Fathers
Sisters of Charity of New York and New
Jersey
Sisters of Dominic of Sensiniwa, WI;
Caldwell, NJ; Adrian, MI and Sparkill,
NY.
Society of
Atonement
Society of Jesus
Unitarian Universalist Association
United Methodist Church
United Church of Christ Board of World
Ministries
Recently the Protestant and Catholic
Churches in Ireland joined with the
Protestant and Catholic Churches of the
United States of America and
Issued a call for Fair Employment and
Investment in Northern Ireland.
This is what they said about the
MacBride Principles:
“Many Americans support the MacBride
Principles, as amplified, as good faith,
nonviolent means to promote fair
employment. We urge that any support of
these amplified principles, which offer
positive values and focus on fair
employment, be joined with continued
support for strong fair employment
measures and an active commitment to
investment and job creation. The
amplified principles, as many of their
advocates agree, should not be used to
discourage investment or encourage
disinvestments.”
In March, 1994, the European Parliament
issued a Report on discrimination in
Northern Ireland. The Report stated that
American pressure was “responsible for
reopening the question of discrimination
in Northern Ireland. . . .”
This Report also states that “Northern
Ireland Catholics see the worldwide
‘MacBride Principles’ campaign as a
great source of support in overcoming
their problems and [this Report]
endorses the campaign’s moral
principles. . . .”
Organized Labor in America:
AFL-CIO
Irish-American Labor Coalition
National Education Association
Major Non-religious, Private
Institutional Shareholders:
Ford Foundation Pension Fund
Radcliffe College Pension Fund
Franklin Research and Development
Corporation
Wellesley College Pension Fund
Georgetown University Pension Fund
Wesleyan University Pension Fund
Harvard University Pension Fund
U.S. COMPANIES AGREEING TO THE
MACBRIDE PRINCIPLES
AND DATES OF AGREEMENT
( As of January 2001)
These US Companies have agreed in
writing to “make all lawful efforts t o
implement the Fair Employment Practices
embodied in the MacBride Principles in
their Northern Ireland operations (some
of these companies no longer operate in
Northern Ireland or have been bought by
another company).
Overall, there are 120 companies doing
business in Northern Ireland. But only
69 publicly-traded companies have more
than 10 employees. (It is only
publicly-traded companies with over 10
employees that are obliged by British
law to keep a statistical breakdown of
the workforce by religion.)
|
COMPANY |
DATE |
|
AES Corporation |
1996 |
|
Alexander &
Alexander Services |
1991 |
|
Allstate Corp. |
2000 |
|
AM
International |
1991 |
|
American Home
Products |
1991 |
|
AT&T |
1992 |
|
Avery
Dennison |
1992 |
|
AVX
Corporation |
1997 |
|
Bemis
Corporation |
2001 |
|
Chesapeake Corp |
1999 |
|
Conoco |
1999 |
|
Dana
Corporation |
1995 |
|
Data General |
1991 |
|
Digital
Equipment |
1989 |
|
Donnelly(R.R.)&Sons |
1999 |
|
DuPont |
1992 |
|
Emerson
Electric |
1998 |
|
Estee
Lauder |
1999 |
|
Federal Express |
1990 |
|
Ford Motor
Company |
1998 |
|
Fort James |
1998 |
|
Fruit of the
Loom |
1991 |
|
GATX
Corporation |
1993 |
|
General
Electric |
1998 |
|
General Motors |
1995 |
|
Honeywell |
1990 |
|
Household
International |
1998 |
|
Hyster (NACCO
Industries) |
1991 |
|
IBM |
1992 |
|
Keyspan Energy |
1997 |
|
McDonald’s
Corporation |
1994 |
|
Marsh and
McClennan |
1994 |
|
Minnesota Mining
and Manufacturing (3M Corp) |
1996 |
|
Northern Telecom
(BCE Corporation) |
1993 |
|
NYNEX |
1990 |
|
Oneida |
1991 |
|
Petsmart |
1999 |
|
Phillip
Morris |
1995 |
|
Pitney Bowes |
1990 |
|
Procter & Gamble |
1991 |
|
Reynolds
Metals |
1994 |
|
Sara Lee |
1991 |
|
Shaw
Industries |
1996 |
|
Sonoco |
1991 |
|
Sun
Healthcare |
1999 |
|
Teleflex |
1991 |
|
Texaco |
1991 |
|
Toys ‘R’ Us |
1999 |
|
Tyco
International |
1994 |
|
Unisys |
1993 |
|
United
Technologies |
2001 |
|
Verizon |
2000 |
|
VF Corporation |
1992 |
|
Viacom |
1999 |
|
Warnaco |
1995 |
|
Waste
Management |
1998 |
|
Westinghouse
Electric |
1995 |
|
Xerox
Corporation |
1996 |
