Worker solidarity against apartheid

In 1984 the Irish Adminstrative and Distributive Trade Union (IDATU) passed policy for a boycott of South African goods. They instructed their members not to handle goods produced in the state, which from 1948 to 1994 mandated white-black segregation (apartheid).

A young shop assistant Mary Manning, refused to serve a customer a grapefruit in Dunnes stores in Dublin. Result: an almost three-year strike, first against her suspension and then for the Irish government to boycott South African goods.

Strike!, at Southwark Playhouse until 6 May tells the story of the young women and one man who kept up daily pickets at Dunnes Stores in Dublin. Those workers went on to speak internationally, visited South Africa, met Demond Tutu and many years later attended Nelson Mandela’s funeral. None of them went into their action knowing that much about apartheid, but all of them became convinced fighters.

They were supported by an exiled South African trade unionist, Nimrod Sajeke, tried for treason with Mandela in the 1950s, who on his return to South African would leave the ANC and help found the Workers and Socialist Party (WASP) now affiliated to Socialist Alternative in Britain and the Socialist Party in Ireland.

Strike! does a great job in showing the difficulties of the strike: former friends crossing pickets, Irish weather, falling behind on mortgage payments, derision from some of the Catholic church hierarchy. Several of the strikers, single mothers, take great pleasure in arguing back against the pious priests and nuns who think they know better than them.

IDATU initially supported the strike, with both then General Secretary John Mitchell and local organiser Brendon Archbold backing the strike and agreeing to payments of £21 per week. But then a strike, which the workers were hoping would be for only two weeks, dragged on for months and years. The union eventually withdrew official support, once the Irish government agreed to boycott South African goods (but Dunnes found a way round this). We see the determination of the strikers, often inspired by Nimrod.

Unfortunately when I went, the theatre was half empty. There are plenty of tickets available for a moving, funny and inspiring story of workers' solidarity.