Stephen Faulkner recalls an important act of international solidarity, now brought to the London stage

Running until 6th May is the play Strike! currently showing at the Southwark Playhouse in London. It deals with a protest action almost 40 years ago in Dublin where a small group of shop workers employed by a company called Dunne’s Stores refused to handle South African produce as part of their union’s campaign to isolate the apartheid white minority regime in South Africa.

The workers sacrificed almost three years without pay and an at times hostile media campaign. This was the 1980s when Margaret Thatcher was UK Prime Minister and labelled the then imprisoned Nelson Mandela a terrorist.

The workers faced a whole host of other hardships involving family, the state, the Church and ineffective politicians. Mass organisations fighting apartheid at the time inside South Africa invited the Dunne’s strikers to South Africa but the apartheid regime prevented them from leaving the airport and they were expelled the same night. 

The play provides a marvellous insight into what happens to ‘ordinary’ workers when they decide to do something ‘extraordinary’. But the strike remained solid, and eventually, despite the lumbering carthorse of bureaucratic trade unionism, inspired thousands of other workers to take similar action.

It’s a great human story, and not just for the politically connected.  At a time when international solidarity actions, and even national solidarity is short of breath, to be reminded and encouraged to think again about how we can give each other support is a very good thing. It’s also rare to see a genuine working class struggle dramatized on the London stage.

In the interests of transparency I should mention that our son Harry is the stage manager of this show. He has really enjoyed sharing his South African upbringing and experiences with the cast, but also with the actual Dunne’s workers who came to the press previews and who are delighted that their story is finally being told. Please go and see it if you can. This review should encourage you. Amandla!

Stephen Faulkner is the former National Coordinator of the South African Federation of Trade Unions.