Documentary on  Debenhams industrial dispute in Cork to premiere next month

Four ex-Debenhams staff (from left) Madeline Whelan, Gillian McSweeney, Valerie Conlon, Mandate shop steward, and Vivian O'Regan pictured outside the store on St.Patrick's St., Cork, where they are doing a 12 hour fast in aid of Marymount Hospice during their official strike on day 160 of the dispute.

A documentary about the Debenhams strike, which made history as the longest industrial relations dispute in Ireland, will premiere next month.

The documentary, 406 Days, is directed by Joe Lee and produced by Fergus Dowd, and has been chosen to close the Dublin Film Festival.

A red carpet premiere will take place at Dublin’s Lighthouse Cinema on March 4. Due to the popularity of the film, it will be shown on three screens that night.

A separate screening will be held in University College Cork on March 13.

The strike lasted some 406 days, during which time picketers braved snow, icy roads, private security, and threats of arrest to demand that a 2016 redundancy agreement was honoured.

They blocked stock from leaving shuttered stores for more than one year.

A 2016 agreement, refused to be honoured by the company, had committed to pay two weeks’ ex-gratia pay per year of service, plus the legal minimum statutory two weeks of pay.

Valerie Conlon, former shop steward with Debenhams on Patrick Street in Cork, said that watching the documentary was emotional.

“Seeing the empty store and remembering how it was, was emotional,” she said.

In April 2020, Debenhams UK announced none of its 11 Irish outlets would reopen after the coronavirus pandemic, making its approximately 1,000 mostly-female workforce redundant.

Workplace Relations Commission

A test case is currently before the Workplace Relations Commission, in connection with complaints taken by around 750 former Debenhams workers over the way they were made redundant.

Mandate trade union will be before the WRC on March 3 to represent workers in this case.

If successful, some former Debenhams workers could be entitled to four weeks of redundancy pay.

The €3m training fund, promised when the bitter dispute ended, has had limited take-up by former employees and will only be available for another eight months, Ms Conlon said.

A bill introduced by Solidarity TD Mick Barry and inspired by the Debenhams workers has completed second stage in the Dáil.

The Companies (Protection of Employees' Rights In Liquidations) Bill 2021, known as ‘the Debenhams Bill’ would make workers preferential creditors in a liquidation so they would be paid what they were owed as a priority. It would also make unpaid collective agreements into a debt under liquidation law.

Following the recent announcement of the Argos closure and subsequent 580 job losses, Ms Conlon said that pressure to pass the legislation quickly has increased.