Plan to allow council workers to wear Easter lily and poppy criticised

A plan to allow council employees in Derry and Strabane to wear the Easter lily and poppy at work appears to be an attempt to address a problem that does not exist, local politicians have said.

Derry City and Strabane District Council is to ask its employees for their views on wearing the emblems.

Under a proposal ratified by the council, workers could wear the lily for a week leading up to Easter Sunday, and the poppy for a week around Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day.

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood, a former mayor of Derry, criticised the plans, saying that the council should be a “neutral workplace”.

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Sinn Féin councillor Mickey Cooper said the proposals were about “inclusivity” and “equality”.

“We want to add to the ability of staff to wear the poppy, the ability to wear the Easter lily. This is about adding to, not taking away from,” he said.

The council was created in 2015 through the amalgamation of Derry and Strabane councils, and does not yet have a policy on flags and emblems. The policy within the former Derry City Council was that no emblems were allowed in the workplace while Strabane District Council followed Fair Employment Commission rules, which permitted the wearing of poppies.

The council began considering the issue of emblems at the time of the Easter Rising centenary in 2016 after independent councillors said they had been approached by staff who wanted to wear the Easter lily.

No demand

A working group was set up in April 2016, and trade union representatives said they had not had any queries from employees regarding the wearing of emblems at work.

However the group’s recommendation – that the wearing of lilies and poppies should be allowed for an appropriate period subject to consultation with staff employees – was approved by the relevant committee last month.

The decision was then ratified by the council despite opposition from the SDLP, which said the wearing of any emblems should be prohibited in the absence of a dedicated policy.

Mr Eastwood said there was no demand for the wearing of emblems among council staff.

“There is a consultation process now to take place with workers and I think all political parties should commit to supporting whatever the workers say, because they’re the ones who have to be on the frontlines,” he said.

“We’ve spent so long trying not to have these problems, and I think we’re going to regret this.”

DUP councillor Hilary McClintock said she believed the “status quo should be protected”.

“We have noted the concern of workers over this. If it’s not broken, why are we trying to fix it?”