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WHEN MARY MANNING first refused to handle two South African grapefruits while working on tills in Dunnes Stores Henry Street in 1984, she had no idea what it would spark.
Mary (who was 21 at the time) was complying with a directive from her union - IDATU – not to handle any South African goods in protest against apartheid in the country.
At the time, the African nation had a system of racial segregation in place, which was used in many ways to deny the rights of many black people in the country.
Various human rights violations were committed by the South African government. The apartheid system received widespread international condemnation, and a series of boycotts and embargoes were imposed on the country.
Mary Manning stepped unknowingly into history on the morning of 19 July 1984 when she refused to register the sale of the two Outspan grapefruits.
Management had issued a final warning to staff over refusing to handle South African goods. Mary had now defied that warning. She was brought up to the manager’s office and promptly suspended.
Mary left the store, and was followed out by nine of her colleagues (eight women, one man). None of them would return to work for nearly two years.
“In the beginning, the first few days we thought we would just be out for a few days and that would be it,” she told TheJournal.ie.
“But then we started to learn what was going on in South Africa and it became something much more than a union policy.
It became something that we all totally believed in and there was no way any of us could go back and handle South African goods.
On the picket line
Mary will publish a book later this month on her experience of the Dunnes Stores strike, as well as her family life and her life after.
Striking Back: The Untold Story of an Anti-Apartheid Striker is written with writer Sinead O’Brien and tells Mary’s story from her own perspective.
The head of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement Kader Asmal publicly praised the strikers soon after their action began.
But initially, Mary and her fellow strikers found little support from other circles. Other unions did not strike in support with them, and Mary said they received abuse from members of the public and their co-workers in Dunnes.
Soon after their strike began, however, the Dunnes workers were joined on the picket line by exiled South African freedom fighter Nimrod Sejake.
The Dublin of 1984 was a different place, and Sejake was the first black person Mary and her colleagues had ever seen in real life. She said that his presence on the picket line was a turning point for her and her colleagues.
In her book, Mary describes Sejake as a quiet and unassuming man in his mid-60s. She recalls his response to a question about what his homeland was really like.
“He held up his right hand as though there were a glass in it and said:
‘You have to imagine South Africa as a pint of Guinness – the vast majority of it is black and a tiny minority is white – and just like a freshly poured pint, the white sits firmly on top of the black.’
Mary said that this painted a clearer picture of the situation in South Africa in her mind than at any point since the strike started.
As the months progressed, Mary and her colleagues got a few knocks, even as support for them and their profile grew.
She said that Dunnes management refused to negotiate or meet with them on any basis. As well as this, in October she said the head of the Irish Anti Apartheid Movement Kader Asmal withdrew his support for the strike.
She said they all were harassed regularly by the gardaí on the picket line at this time.
“We got an awful lot of knocks back. People who we thought would have supported us: the Church, the government – who were all members of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement at the time,” she said.
“And one by one they either tried to distance themselves from us, or the government just didn’t support us at all.
We didn’t want the law to change but that’s what happened in the end – what we wanted was the right not to have to handle South African goods.
International support
The Dunnes strikers were given their greatest endorsement when the South African Bishop Desmond Tutu – at the time a vocal and renowned critic of apartheid – asked to meet them as he travelled to collect his Nobel Peace Prize in the December after the strike started.
Mary and Karen Gearon travelled to London Heathrow where they were interviewed by the international press, and their profile grew considerably.
Over the course of the remainder of the strike action, Mary and her colleagues would have a series of highs and lows.
They travelled to South Africa at the invitation of Desmond Tutu, only to be held under armed guard for 12 hours at a Johannesburg airport, before being sent on a plane back to Ireland.
They travelled to other countries for speaking arrangements, some occupied Dunnes Stores, they marched through Dublin with thousands of supporters and they received support and criticism from many high-profile names.
In the end, the Irish government passed laws banning the importation and sale of South African goods, and once all of the Dunnes Stores produce had been sold and the ban implemented, they returned to work.
However, Mary didn’t stay too long. Feeling she was blacklisted by employers in Ireland, she emigrated to Australia in October 1988 for five years.
She returned to Ireland in 1993 and has lived here since.
When questioned over the strike, if it changed her life and if she would do it again, Mary has no second thoughts.
“I’m very proud of what we did. It was something that we achieved. We feel like we achieved it,” she said.
“Whether the government ever admit it or not. There are probably things we would have done differently but we never would have changed it.
Still to this day I always say I’d do it again.
The story of a family
Mary’s book is about more than her experience of the Dunnes strike – a story she believes belongs to all of the strikers and one that has been told before.
Striking Back is also the story of her life after the strike, and the story of her family’s life before.
Mary’s father supported her throughout the strike action, but her mother was much more conflicted and worried for her daughter as her name began to appear in the newspapers more and more.
Mary’s mother Josephine was born out of wedlock and spent most of her childhood in the Goldenbridge industrial school run by the Sisters of Mercy.
“Her own mother had put her up to fostering and had just called to the door when I was about eight,” said Mary.
Josephine’s mother had gotten married and had had no other children. Known as “Aunt Mollie” in the family, she died when Mary was in her late teens.
“My mother went down to the funeral but was told to go home because she was making a show of herself,” said Mary.
“No one knew who she was. She was never recognised by her own mother, publicly – even though she’d had a relationship with her for 10 years.
So when she died her mother’s sister didn’t want her mother’s secret to come out.
While Mary didn’t really acknowledge it at the time, her mother’s own experience with the establishment had instilled in her a drive to kick back against the authority which had made life so difficult for her mother
“All these things have an effect on you,” she said.
“She was so afraid of standing up to the establishment – that had an effect when she was so afraid for me when I was on the strike because she knew we were going up against the government and going up against the Catholic Church.
She had never had the chance to do it. It made me stronger, I suppose, because she couldn’t stand up. But I could.
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A list of DB schemes that have solvency problems would be a useful thing…
Mark the solvency of a particular Scheme is none of your business unless you are a Member. Thus you quite rightly have no access to such information.
It would be my business if I was a prospective member; if I can’t find out if the scheme is about to fold and give my contributions to other members, why would I ever invest a cent in it?
And once you accept that; and once you accept that any DB scheme that collapses leaves its members dependent on the State; the practice of keeping open financial healthchecks on pension schemes stops being “none of our business” and starts being a logical requirement to run a pension scheme.
We’ve seen in the US what happens when there’s insufficient transparency around pension funds – they wind up insolvent because a company raids its piggybank for operating capital.
Are there DB schemes out there which still accept new entrants? I was under the impression they are rare as hens teeth.
As for existing schemes it never ceases to amaze me that the pension providers never take a hit on their often exorbitant charges and fees when things start to go downhill.
Expect a push into private pensions or DC schemes from DB schemes and the resulting bonuses to the providers for generating “new business”.
What a con.
Jaysus, Mick, what a bizarre viewpoint.
Tim your bowels are LOOSE regularly but most of your trolls LOSE the interest of readers quickly. Try an education or just give up trolling.
Why would any fool save for a pension?
The government taxes your money on the way in, by not refunding your income tax paid.
The government then taxes your money while it is in your pension fund, the pension levy.
The government then taxes your money on exit from your pension fund, income tax again.
One tax is fair enough but only a fool would sign up for three.
Take your money out when you can and get it out of the country so this thieving government can’t take it from you!
Cash-in-hand sounds better. I know people earning cash and they get to keep it all.
This ideally would serve to scare people into actually getting up and doing something!
Tax the top 10% and increase taxes on the rich and corporations to help the working people pay into their pensions. Ireland is loosing tax because of tax breaks under the Fine Gael administration.
eh Tim tell me how exactly taxing the rich and corporations will help working people pay into their pensions?
In detail please?
Any actual figures to go with that, Tim? Or is it the usual “classist” bile?
Right, defined pensions are only a promise with no financial penalty to the administrators if they make a mess of it. My big issue with DB is the culture, everyone in power has one. Civil servants, judges,politicians , hospital consultants, large financial instuitional directors.
My opinion,Is that politicians should be the first to stop getting them. The superannuation scheme is a mess, costs a fortune and is funded directly out of public funds. Also no government levy on their funds, the capitalisation factor of 20 for them is ridicules and is no reflection of the true values of their pensions. Top end civil servants like turkeys don’t vote for Christmas and that is why most of them left if they could when the saw the changes coming in. Still not enough changes made.
The hybrid scheme for new public servants is a step in the right direction but I feel it should be targeted at the lower end of the pay scale in the public sector. I still think the pension is a very important part of attracting good people into the public services and should be protected and valued in equal measure.
When will a government party with real reform ideas lead by example, go dc on their pension benefits. Then they can look on the rest of the pension sector with real conviction and help a sector where the least important person is the pension holder.
The 0.6% levy is a disgrace, for so many reasons. The investment advise around pensions is very poor in general and people will loss far more through bad investment decisions. That is why I feel the first thing the government should do is regulate properly those who have vested interested in the pensions industry. The policy holder should be protected. It is easier to get into selling pensions than it is to get a taxi licence, there is no barrier to entry in the pensions industry. The bar needs to be raised.
one earlier contributor said pensions are not worthwhile, I disagree, it is very simple do the Maths. If you earn enough, there are significant advantages to taking out a pension but contributions should be reviewed on a year by year basis, if you are in a employer sponsored scheme, it makes even more sense, employer contributions are not subject to the USC or BIK.
Sorry for the waffle but rant over now.
You advocate the failed policies that got us into this mess (Tax breaks for the rich).
The idea that the top 10% “create jobs” should be swept aside. Over the past 20 years, taxes on the rich have been falling despite a ballooning deficit due to tax shortfalls on the wealthy.
No I don’t believe in tax breaks for rich but the rules are the rules. The thresholds have been reduced significantly so pensions are no longer the play thing of the rich. Each person should assess their own situation and make an informed decision. Try and save for your future and if there is a tax advantage take it.
I am not making sweeping generalisations just giving an informed decision on an area that I am very concerned about.
“No I don’t believe in tax breaks for rich but the rules are the rules”
lol. So you basically go along like a sheep blindly accepting a corrupt, failed system of tax breaks. The rules aren’t written in stone.
It doesnt surprise me to read this. Ireland has become unbalanced as older people are living longer and thus drawing pensions for longer than ever intended. There are not enough people working to support this therefore pensions will be effected. It doesnt take a masters degree in economics to figure this one out. There wont be a state pension in 10-15 years either as the government are spending it on roads and infrastructure at the moment. The question is has anyone any solutions?
Tax the rich. We currently have the lowest corporate tax take in western Europe. We also have little tax on wealth which the top 10% still hoard. Capital gains and dividends again are low-taxed. We cannot ignore these untouchables. We must sweep aside the irrational notion that taxing them somehow leads to “job losses”. It doesn’t.
Aer lingus defined benefit pension scheme is in the s**t too, a deficit of nearly a billion and want the staff to switch to a defined contribution the worker gets screwed again
Pensions are indeed the worst gamble of the herd mentality. The truth is that only the civil service pensions are worth having as they make every state employee with one an instant millionaire. only the very wealthy could afford such a guaranteed scheme as this and would pay through the nose for it.
Forget tax the rich there Tim, tax the civil service on the market value of this one hell of a benefit in kind !!
My man Eddie, will have to disagree. Forget the word pension for a minute and look at tax advantages. If there are none don’t do one. Plan for your future in some way though. I have seen a lot of people who put nothing in place, save for your future be it a simple savings account, property, your business. Ensure what ever you do that you have structured it to suit you.
Organised people know at the start of the year how much they are going to set aside and make it a priority. Saving is a habit and if you can gain a tax advantage then use products that allow this. If not suitable look else where.
ha ha Robbie don’t you know that 80 is the new 60 :-). I will spend my hoard of green shield stamps and post office savings on a total body transplant and live forever.. …
Rob……you must not get fooled by this old chestnut! Sure by all means put arrangements in place for your twilight years but make sure that the vehicle you set up for this will (to completely murder the analogy) pass the NCT now and in 30/40 years time. Two facts; 1) the value of money halves every10 years (average over last century). 2) the real rate of inflation is much higher than the published figures which DB pensions are pegged against.
Spend your money now at full value or in 10 years time at half value or quarter value in 20 or 12.5 % in 30 years. answer. …buy appreciating assets that have a chance at offering an income while remembering how many of the world top 100 companies from 30 years ago are now even in existence. buy land , Commercial centre city property or share spreads
Eddie you can put you want in a pension. Not just shares, i agree with you. They are not for everyone. By the way you don’t have to wait 40 years. I know how old you are!
have your say