A High Court judge has granted the building company, G & T Crampton Ltd, an injunction against three building workers, preventing them from picketing a £29 million office development under construction by the company at Clonskeagh in Dublin.
The injunction against Mr Brendan Gray, Mr Eric Coffey and Mr Liam Houlihan prevents them or any person acting in consort with them from picketing the Belfield Office Park complex, where the court heard they were employed by a sub-contactor, Mr Colm Murphy.
Mr Justice Kelly said failure to comply with his order could cause serious problems for the defendants and he advised the men to raise with their union any difficulties they might have with his order.
The judge also prohibited the men or anyone else acting in consort with them from maintaining they had a trade dispute with the company and from publishing or distributing any material defamatory of the construction company.
In response to a query from Mr Gray, Mr Justice Kelly said any breach of his order would constitute contempt of court. The penalty for such contempt was imprisonment, but he was sure this would not arise. The judge adjourned the case against the Building and Allied Trades Union for a week after receiving undertakings that the union would comply with the terms of a restraining order granted by the High Court last week.
Mr Roderick Horan, for the company, said his client was engaged since August last year in the construction of a £29 million office park at Clonskeagh. Although Crampton was the main contractor on the site, it did not employ bricklayers or blocklayers, counsel said. These workers were employed by Mr Murphy. He understood some dissatisfaction had arisen and the defendants had lost their jobs. Counsel said the defendants had been represented by the Building and Allied Trades Union since January 5th last. Last Friday, there was a mass picket outside the site complex. Posters were carried and flyers distributed which were seriously defamatory of his client, Mr Horan said.
Counsel said his client had no trade dispute with any of the defendants and had never employed any of them. He said the defendants were in breach of a registered no-strike agreement which was signed by their own union.
In an affidavit, Mr Patrick Walsh, a director of G & T Crampton, said if the construction works were not completed on schedule, his company might be exposed to substantial damages. If the picketing continued, it would have catastrophic effects on the company's business, with the probability that it would have to cease operating on the site with resulting unemployment. The site overhead costs alone were £41,000 a week.
In a statement read to the court, Mr Gray said their employer wanted them to sign on the dole while they were employed by him on the Clonskeagh site. When they refused, they were sacked. Their union had tried to get their jobs back but had failed. Mr Gray said he felt the sub-contractor would return to the site as soon as they lifted their picket. He agreed that a registered agreement entered into by the Building Workers Trade Union, among others, was binding on him.
Mr Coffey told the court they were paid in cash by the sub-contractor.
Granting the injunction, Mr Justice Kelly said he was satisfied the plaintiff had established it had no trade dispute with the defendants, who were never employed by G & T Crampton.
He was also satisfied the Building and Allied Trade Union was a party to a collective agreement which included in its terms machinery for settlement of disputes. He was further satisfied that no secret ballot had taken place before a strike picket had been imposed.