|
|
|
|
‘We Made it Less Easy for the Parties to Simply Walk Away’
Apart from its devastating human toll the sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland has had a major economic impact on the Province. The local business community recognised this in the early 1990s, and decided to actively push for peace. The business community has acted as a policy think-tank and a lobbying group, and recently it has also issued anti-sectarian guidelines. These initiatives have not only helped to reduce tension, they have also proved to be profitable.
It is hard to evaluate the exact economic impact of the Troubles -as the Northern Ireland conflict is known- but without doubt it has been immense. Loss of life, destruction of plant and premises, high security costs and a brain drain from Northern Ireland are among the most obvious consequences. But the violence has also kept out investments and tourists. To give some examples: while tourism contributed 7 percent to GDP in the Irish Republic in 1994, it amounted to only 1.5 percent in Northern Ireland. In the same year, almost one billion pounds were spent on law, order and security services.
The hidden costs of the Troubles are also considerable. There is a tradition in Northern Ireland of labelling businesses along sectarian lines. Sometimes these lines are real, sometimes they are imaginary, but the effect is the same: employees, customers and suppliers from ‘the other side’ are deterred.
Companies looking for a supplier or a candidate for a job openly or unconsciously ask themselves ‘is he/she one of us?’ instead of ‘is he/she the best for us?’. Sometimes people cannot buy what they want, or do not have the job they would like, because they are afraid to enter certain areas. Other hidden costs include loss of motivation, absenteeism and disloyalty of workers because of harassment, bullying and unfairness in the workplace.
In the early 1990s, the Northern Ireland business community recognised the link between the Troubles and the slow economic growth of the region, and decided it was time to act. The Northern Ireland branch of the Confederation of Business and Industry (CBI) took the lead. In 1994, the CBI published the document ‘Peace - A challenging new era’, which became widely known as the ‘Peace Dividend paper’. The message of the document was that peace would help spur economic growth and that economic growth would help consolidate peace. If violence ceased, according to the CBI, huge amounts of money that were currently absorbed by the Troubles, could be reinvested in education and infrastructure, which would be of great benefit for the economy.
The August 1994 cease-fire soon provided the evidence to back up the CBI theory:
• tourism jumped 20 percent within the space of a year;
• unemployment dropped to 11,5 percent, the lowest level in 14 years;
• over 30 million pounds in new investment ventures were announced.
Some time later the CBI launched another initiative. Together with six other trade and business organisations it created the Group of 7. This group included the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Institute of Directors, and the Northern Ireland Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. In October 1996, it brought together representatives of all the political parties involved in the peace talks. During a meeting in Belfast, the Group of 7 presented its economic rationale for peace. The media and politicians at that time had begun to adopt the term ‘peace dividend’, although some -Unionists in particular- openly declared that business should stick to its own business, which is, in their view, doing business.
| ‘A business cannot afford to be contaminated by a sectarian agenda.’ |
The Group of 7 organized five further meetings with political parties (collective rather than individual meetings are preferred under the Group’s strategy of co-operation and impartiality). It also played an important role in the 1998 Drumcree stand-off, mediating between the Orange Order (a Unionist group that was not allowed to parade down Garvaghy Road, located in a Catholic neighbourhood) and the Garvaghy Road residents, which helped lessen the tensions. Other Group of 7 initiatives have included media statements strongly condemning all forms of violence and appeals to business colleagues to help build up corporate and grassroots support for peace.
The message of the Group of 7 is that Northern Ireland faces a choice between ‘peace, progress and prosperity’ and a future as ‘one of the world’s most irredeemable trouble spots’. The Group admits that business alone cannot build peace. But chairman Sir George Quigley claimed in the summer of 1998 that the efforts of the Group ‘made it less easy for the parties to simply walk away’. A clear result of the contribution business life made to a more peaceful Northern Ireland was the visit, in June 1998, of a delegation of 17 business leaders led by US secretary of commerce William Daley. Daley openly stated he had come to Northern Ireland to ‘support the peace process by facilitating business relationships between the US and the private sectors of Northern Ireland and Ireland’.
In the spring of 1998, together with several other leading business organisations, the CBI published a set of anti-sectarian guidelines for employers and managers. The guidelines, called ‘Doing business in a divided society’, were the product of a two-year process of debate between the organisations in partnership with the Community Relations Council (CRC), an independent charity that seeks to promote better community relations in Northern Ireland.
‘Doing business in a divided society’ builds on the work of Counteract, the anti-intimidation unit of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU). Counteract organizes anti-sectarian training for unions and community groups and undertakes research into the incidence of intimidation in the workplace.
The guidelines go beyond existing laws that require employers to ensure that the workplace is free from discrimination and harassment. Instead of emphasizing the negative impact of sectarianism, they stress that managing diversity is good management practice. Companies with a good reputation are likely to obtain the best potential workforce and to retain it. They create a sense of satisfaction within the workforce which leads to more commitment and better performance. And because people are the most important resource in any business, such a policy creates competitive advantages.
‘
Guidelines
To help companies screen themselves, the project Doing Business
in a Divided Society developed checklists. This is the one for
working with the community.
Has your business...
1. A thorough knowledge of how it is perceived in both main communities
in Northern Ireland?
2. Evaluated the business costs/benefits of this image?
3. Decided whether this image is one it should have in order to
be most profitable?
4. Considered to what extent the business and its staff are actively
involved in the community at present, formally and informally,
e.g. in schools, community organisations, charities?
5. Ensured that the appropriate balance of active involvement
in the two communities is maintained?
6. Planned its future community involvement to ensure that it
creates the image in local communities which it wishes to have?
7. Made an unequivocal commitment to being anti-sectarian in its
community involvement?
8. Clearly communicated its anti-sectarianism to all staff?
9. Senior staff who consistently model good anti-sectarian practice
in their work-related community involvement?
Allowing political/religious considerations to prevent the retention and development of the best people does not make sound business sense,’ the guideline points out.
The same goes for suppliers. By providing the resources of the company, they determine in great part the quality of its goods and services. ‘The maxim “quality in, quality out” or conversely “garbage in, garbage out” applies,’ according to the guidelines. ‘Businesses need good suppliers as well as good customers. A business cannot afford to be contaminated by a sectarian agenda.’
Contaminated companies get less support from the community, the guidelines stress. This makes them vulnerable to crime and vandalism and limits their potential customer-base. Being actively involved in the community also helps a company to comply with quality and environmental standards, which have proven bottom-line benefits.
Despite the fact that the Northern Irish business community’s peace efforts have received relatively little publicity they have nevertheless been enthusiastically received by experts.
‘The Northern Ireland case shows that, even given deep-rooted animosity, politicians can still reach peace - especially if they focus on their common economic interests,’ Jordana Friedman of the Council on Economic Priorities states in her research study ‘The Corporate Sector and Conflict Prevention’. She adds: ‘Like Northern Ireland, other countries should start applying the logic of economics to peace negotiations. No one talks about the “Bosnian peace dividend” or the “Middle Eastern peace dividend”, despite the fact that both regions would benefit economically from a permanent end to violence.’
Feedback please to
j.verhoeven@euconflict.org