Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
WHEN THE NEWS broke in April 2020 that all Debenhams stores in Ireland were to shut as the company went into liquidation, workers were stunned.
They had just recently left their stores due to the Covid-19 restrictions, expecting to return with their colleagues and customers when the doors opened back up.
They never did, and since then staff have spent 406 days picketing outside, rain or shine (or pandemic), occupying stores and sometimes facing arrest as they fought, not just for their own rights and entitlements, but for other retail workers who face a similar fate in the future.
It has been, as former Waterford shop steward Michelle Gavin describes it, “an epic journey”, that ended this week when workers voted to lift their picket and accept proposals for a €3 million government training, upskilling and business start-up fund for the company’s former workers.
The closure of the stores in Ireland saw the loss of 2,000 jobs and was announced after the UK retailer told staff that the business would be going into liquidation. The company had operated four stores in Dublin, two in Cork and others in Galway, Limerick, Newbridge, Tralee and Waterford.
Workers expected to receive an enhanced redundancy package, negotiated by their union in the years prior to the liquidation, but were told they would have to be content with the statutory rate of two weeks’ pay per year of service from the State’s Social Insurance Fund.
And so began the 406-day battle by workers.
In conversation with The Journal, three former Debenhams employees and shop stewards, Valeria Conlon (Cork), Jane Crowe (Dublin) and Michelle Gavin (Waterford) spoke of the impact the last 13 months had on their lives and their intention to keep fighting for workers’ protections.
Valerie: “I had just been coming back from shopping – my husband was driving – and at the time the first restrictions had started. So the guards were stopping us and finding out where we were going and coming from, and the guard stopped us and I looked at my phone, and I shouted; ‘Jesus Christ, I’m out of work’. The guard just went on: ‘Go on’.
It was the shock, straightaway, I told everyone in the Whatsapp group to check their emails. I was totally and utterly in shock. I actually couldn’t believe it because the night before I had been told the Irish side of the business was okay, that we had nothing to worry about.
“Then I got this email and I came home and I cried. 24 years of my life and to be told by email that your job is gone.
Jane: ”I was at home and my phone just started going mental with WhatsApp messages from everybody. I just went into the email and I couldn’t believe it. The first thing that popped into my head was I’m a single parent, he’s 21 now, but I have the mortgage on my own. And that was the first thing I thought: ‘How am I going to pay a mortgage?’
“And then the tears started running down my face.”
Michelle: ”I was at home as well and one of Valerie’s co-workers sent me a message asking if I’d checked my email. So I went in then and saw it and it just pinged off from there. I had just finished my mortgage, I’m that older, but I still have one daughter who was in college so that was my concern and that was what was on my mind.
Funnily enough, the week that we finished on the 24th of March, I had gone in to do the cashing up in work, we were the last people in there. And I remember just saying to one of the managers, jokingly; ‘I’ll probably never see you again, they’ll probably walk away now with the pandemic and take the opportunity’.
“Little did I know how right I was.”
Valerie: “Initially, my phone, some days would go on fire. I remember one time going in for a shower and I came out to 200 texts. I have to say I loved doing it, I wouldn’t change a bit of it because it all went so well. But it was the stress, because we literally didn’t know from day to day what was going to happen, if stock was going to be moved, if people were going to be going into the store.
It was constant stress. But I felt good getting up in the morning for it because I was getting up for a purpose, so I have mixed emotions about it, I’m going to actually miss it.
Michelle: “Funnily enough in a way the picket got us through the pandemic that first year, for me anyway. We were very careful and we did everything we were supposed to do and I don’t think anybody on the picket got Covid. That’s a great testament to us.
“And as Valerie said, you had a focus, you know you were on certain days, you knew you were getting up to do it. And for us we had the extra bit which kept us on Zoom calls and different things.”
Jane: “Even when I was in hospital for a time I missed it, because I wasn’t part of the talks with [Labour Court Chairman] Kevin Foley. I was there for the first one and then I became ill and I felt like I was letting my store down, because I wasn’t able to be there to represent them. I had represented them for 22 years and I just felt this was the biggest moment in all those years.”
Valerie: “In Cork we were lucky, each time we were doing it I rang the guards to let them know. We were never stopped, we were just told to make sure that the social distancing was there and it was adhered to, and that nobody was outside their 5km or 2km at the time.
“They took our names once and when they were taking our names, they were apologising that they were taking our names.”
Jane: “Henry Street, now, is a different story altogether. From the very first protest we had we were socially distant, we had our gloves on, masks on, we had our hand sanitiser and we were being pushed off.
And yet just down the road at the Four Courts you had a court case [around Covid restrictions]. At one stage my bus had passed them at the Four Courts and there must have been 30 or 40 people there together with no masks on. And I got a call on my way to say the guards were at our protest moving us on – I couldn’t believe it.
“Then our occupation, we only managed to get two hours done and the guards took us away and processed us in the garda station.”
Michelle: “We would have called every time to let them know we were doing a protest. Now I never asked their permission, I just told them we were. But they were okay about it, they would come down and check around.
“When we did the occupation they came in and said ‘you know you’re not supposed to be here’, but we didn’t have any kind of experience like Jane, we were allowed to stay there for the five days.
The night when they came for us, [during a picket earlier this month as stock was being removed from the store] I was shocked because we hadn’t had anything like that. It was the first time I actually got a fright and they had everything blocked off quickly so no other supporters could come in, but it went off okay in the end.
Valerie: “You couldn’t make plans.
I remember the one weekend I did make plans, and the days beforehand I went in to do the sit-in and my husband was saying: ‘But are we going away for the weekend Valerie, seriously, promise me we’re still going’.
“And you’d be sitting down for dinner going through your phone while you’re eating. This is just what we were doing all the time.”
Jane: “My son, he’s 21 now, and I wouldn’t have been seeing a lot of him. And I said to him that he wasn’t around much and he said to me: ‘Sure when I’m here you’re on the phone or the laptop, you never stop’.
And I realised he was right, I was waking up in the night with the phone going off, you’d go out for a walk and leave the phone behind and there’d be hundreds of messages about something happening in one of the stores or your own, so it did affect family life a lot.
Michelle: “Your life is taken over. I think when it was most poignant for me was when we did the occupation.
My mother is from a family of nine and two of her family members died last year – they weren’t Covid-related, thank God, but they were ill. The first chap died when I was in doing the occupation and I remember the way I felt that night when it happened, I didn’t know what to do for the best.
I remember calling my mother and she said: ‘You’re to stay where you are because that’s the kind of people we are – we’re fighters and we stand up for ourselves’ and she said ‘Jim would be very proud of you and you’re not to come out until the time is right’.
Valerie: “It’s terrible, it’s not an offer. It’s €3 million to retrain, a goodwill fund, but it’s not an offer. But what we’re concentrating on now is the legislation [The Debenhams Bill] and that’s what we want.
Opening the Dáil debate on my party’s Bill ‘Companies (Protection of Employees' Rights in Liquidations) Bill 2021’, better known as the "Debenhams Bill".
— Mick Barry TD (@MickBarryTD) May 12, 2021
Follow the proceedings on Oireachtas TV #PassDebenhamsBill #SupportDebenhamsBill #PutWorkersFirst pic.twitter.com/VPOxRuj24l
“Hopefully people will be able to get the courses that they want to do out of the scheme, but, excuse my French, it’s crap. It’s an offer that shouldn’t have been put to us really.
When we were going on the Zoom call that we knew was going to be our last meeting, we couldn’t believe what had actually come out of it. We were all speechless. But the vote went through and we are going to be stepping down at our pickets. But we are still going to be fighting in the background for the legislation, because it has to be sorted and we can’t let that go.
Michelle: “It was all we were going to be offered and we had to accept that at some stage the the strike was going to come to an end. What was disappointing was that they tried to make out that this was ringfenced for us and it was something special, but it wasn’t.
“Dell got a similar offer and so did Waterford Glass all those years ago, it has been offered to others, it has just been made to look like it’s this wonderful thing tailored just for us. But as Valerie said, we are not finished yet.”
Jane:” Leo and Micheál may have been rubbing their hands yesterday thinking this is over, but they haven’t seen or heard the end of us.”
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
But 70% of americans believe that god created the universe in 6 days
Link for that?
Yes I have, thanks for asking
Some people believe the Luas will be completed in 50 years. As if.
Em sure there are teleporters already for sale on donedeal! Seriously!
Teleporters is an anagram of ….” RTE TO SLEEP ” ..hmmmmm interesting signal we are getting there maybe ……and 25% of Americans today also think the sun moves around the earth causing sunrise and sunsets so seriously why care what they think will be happening in 50 years time when so many of them clueless at this moment in time ;))
There’s nothing quite as thick as people who continue to claim that the population of the most successful country in the history of the world is thick – a country which dominates almost every academic discipline and which has won by far the most Nobel prizes of any country in the world.
George bush
Bertie Ahern, Brian Cowan, Enda Kenny. What’s your point?
“Most successful country in the history of the world”.. That has to be the most ridiculous statement I have ever heard, you must be an American. Thick as a branch.
As if to prove my point …
‘Most recent superpower’ yes, buts thats all.
There is a massive divide in the US when it comes to education. The haves get great educations, the have nots get extremely poor education.
I love when middle class Irish people look at poor uneducated Americans and judge the whole country by it. In all honesty, if these types of polls were conducted in Ireland, what percentage of people do you think wouldn’t, for example even know what DNA is? From the mass-going FF voting morons to the slack-jawed troglodytes wandering around our cities, I’m guessing it would be quite high.
“I love when middle class Irish people look at poor uneducated Americans and judge the whole country by it”
They’re not doing that at all. They’re judging the percentage of Americans included in the survey and laughing at the whole country for having a high percentage of idiots.
“what percentage of people do you think wouldn’t, for example even know what DNA is” you don’t need that much of an education to have a basic understanding of what DNA is. But I bet you anything that a higher percentage of Irish people know where Canada is than US citizens. =D
What percentage of Irish citizens would be able to point out Norway on a map?
“What percentage of Irish citizens would be able to point out Norway on a map?”
If you think Irish people not able to identify a tiny obscure country surrounding by dozens of other tiny obscure countries is in some way equivalent to US citizens not being unable to identify the gigantic country they share a border with, then your education system is in more trouble than I ever imagined.
Jimbo, from your description of Norway I’m guessing you know absolutely nothing whatsoever about it. You’re wrong on all counts, so do have a look at a map.
On what counts Joseph? Norway is in Europe. There are a great many small countries in Europe.
In what way is an Irishman not knowing where Norway is in any way equivalent to an American not being able to find the enormous country they share a border with?
Do you think Norway is the size of Canada? Do you think Ireland shares a border with Norway? Do you think Norway is an Island or continent without any bordering countries?
I saw an article in National Geographic which claimed that 92% of 18-24 year olds in the USA pointed out Canada on a map. So I’m not sure where the claim comes from that they can’t, since every child in their compulsory primary education system undoubtedly learns where it is quite early. Norway is a neighbour of ours to the north, and is about as significant from our point of view as Canada is from a US point of view. And I’d say half the population don’t know where it is.
Jimbo, is Norway a small country ? No. Is Norway surrounded by dozens of small countries ? No.
The rest of your last post is irrelevant as a response to mine.
Glad to hear you’re getting out.
LMAO you think Norway is a big country? Norway can fit inside Canada nearly 26 times.
Unless you count Russia as part of Europe, every country in Europe is small. All of them. They are tiny. There is a cattle station in Australia the size of belgium FFS
Don’t recall saying Norway was a big country and the relevance of the cattle station/Belgium comparison is what, precisely ? Please also tell me which small countries surround Norway.
Norway is a teeny weeny insignificant country. Its population is smaller than that of Toronto. It’s in Europe. All nearby countries are small in terms of the area they occupy. All of them. Sweden, denmark, Austria… it doesn’t matter which countries you name… germany, italy, uk, ireland… they are all small. Name one european country that is not small.
Norway also happens to have a teeny weeny population. It is totally insignificant. I don’t know what slartybartfast was thinking when he wasted his time building those ugly fjords.
Nothin new , I used to drive a Manitou Teleporter years ago.
Teleportation is possible and has already been demonstrated in the lab with subatomic particles and single atoms. We’re a lot further than 50 years away from teleporting a human being though… even if that were a desirable thing to do given that it wouldn’t be you coming out the other end, but rather a copy of you.
Not atoms. Photons.
@Barry O’Brien
Wrong. An beryllium atom was teleported in 2004.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/17/us/scientists-teleport-not-kirk-but-an-atom.html
Well over the course of 8 years every cell in the human body replenishes. Meaning you are not a single atom similar to a you 8 years ago or a you 8 years from now.
Teleporter does the same thing just faster.
Correct me if I’m wrong, because I’m not a physicist and only did some light reading some time ago, but that was essentially replicating the characteristics of one atom and transmitting that data to another atom which took on the characteristics, making a clone? Whereas the photon can actually be moved from one place to another? There was a bug fuss around the photon teleportation around a year ago.
Nope. Both experiments used quantum entanglement. Both experiments teleported the subject material in the same sense of the word.
I think you misunderstand quantum entanglement. Nothing with a physical mass has ever been moved from one location to another without moving through the intervening space. In the case of the atom you linked, the quantum state of one atom was transferred to another atom changing out to be identical to the first one. Both atoms stayed in their location. The leading scientists in these experiments are vehement we will never see mass teleportation.
You don’t have to move the physical mass. They simply teleport the properties of the atom to another atom.
“Both atoms stayed in their location”
Not according to the article Jude.
“The act of teleporting always destroys the original — not entirely unlike the transporters of the ”Star Trek” television shows and movies.”
Both atoms did not stay in their location, the original was destroyed after its properties were teleported to another atom.
It’s also reported in the journal IEEE spectrum, which provides a little more detail:
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1046690
Read the article you linked. All of it. The reference to the original being destroyed was a reference to the classic idea of teleportation in Sci-fi. The quantum state of one atom was transferred to another. No mass moved. Both atoms still intact. It’s exciting because it means we could potentially transfer data via Binary quantum states. But again, no mass was actually teleported. Simply the “data” of one atom was transferred to another.
Jude, does that apply to photon teleportation too? The context in which I gained my very limited knowledge was researching quantum cryptography. The photon is they key and is transported to the recipient to decrypt data. As the photon can only exist in one place in space at any time, and because it’s transported rather than transmitted it cannot be intercepted, it is unbreakable encryption. Or, likely that my understanding is completely flawed.
I have read all of it, several times at this stage.
“The reference to the original being destroyed was a reference to the classic idea of teleportation in Sci-fi”
No it Isn’t. The only reference to sci-fi is where the author is explicitly stating that the definition in real physics is “not unlike not entirely unlike the transporters of the Star Trek”.
Read it again…
“In physics, teleportation means creating a replica of an object, or at least some aspect of it, at some distance from the original. The act of teleporting always destroys the original — not entirely unlike the transporters of the ”Star Trek” television shows and movies — so it is impossible produce multiple copies.”
“No mass moved”
Why do you keep saying that? I just finished telling you that it isn’t necessary to move mass to teleport an atom. It’s the properties of the atom that are teleported.
The key to understanding what they mean by destroyed is partly down to semantics. They don’t physically destroy the atom, but they destroy its state when it is observed.
“Then the scientists measured the energy states of A and B, essentially opening the boxes to see whether each contained a 1 or a zero”
That’s my understanding. I’m not a physicist, but I know the basics and am well aware of the confusion that can arise from the semantics used by quantum physicists.
@Barry
This is the abstract from a 1997 experiment in the journal nature.
Quantum teleportation — the transmission and reconstruction over arbitrary distances of the state of a quantum system — is demonstrated experimentally. During teleportation, an initial photon which carries the polarization that is to be transferred and one of a pair of entangled photons are subjected to a measurement such that the second photon of the entangled pair acquires the polarization of the initial photon. This latter photon can be arbitrarily far away from the initial one. Quantum teleportation will be a critical ingredient for quantum computation networks.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v390/n6660/abs/390575a0.html
When quantum physicists use the word “destroy” they don’t mean they destroyed the physical matter or particle. They mean they destroyed the state. In the case of photons it’s the state of the photon’s polarisation.
Something tells me Frank “flight 370 is a conspiracy” would be better off not reading this article.
I’m gonna get me popcorn!
Lol franks only having a laugh :)
Teleportation has already been done. Mind you only an electron. Teleportation as we imagine it is very very very far away.
Also we can create clouds which is kind of controlling the weather. Again, full control is insanely far away.
Basically, fecking Americans.
What? I think you are confusing it with the quantum teleportation of a photon. An electron would be completely different story as that would be teleporting something with mass. Not possible (yet).
Wrong. Mass has nothing to do with it. A beryllium atom (along with its electrons) were teleported in 2004. Last I checked they had mass… and electrons too.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/17/us/scientists-teleport-not-kirk-but-an-atom.html
Do excuse me, I did mean photon! But yes, as pointed out above, an atom with its electrons were also teleported.
Great, an extra half hour in bed
I’ll take a transport to Ranelagh or Rathgar please
I can’t wait to see the cheap teleporters Lidl will have on offer. You arrive at your destination without any hair…or legs!
You will have a great set of spanners though.
Before anybody does the usual thing of pointing out that we don’t even have flying cars yet, I’d just like to point out that they’re called helicopters.
That could be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. For a number of reasons.
Firstly, we DO have flying cars. They’re essentially small planes that can drive on the road like cars. You drive them to the airport, unfold the wings and take off.
Secondly, how the fck do you drive a helicopter on the road? What qualifies it as a car?
Aeromobil: http://www.aeromobil.com/video
Well to be fair they set themselves goals :)
My daughter hate planes and she always telling me that she will invent Teleporter
There isn’t as much work now for them Teleporter machines in Ireland since the construction downturn of 2008.
Could they not have gone with a picture of Chief O’Brien?
Ahh 50 years time,I sick of walking up stairs.
Use a lift?
A 3D printer is a form of teleporter. It can replicate an object and send it anywhere in the world provided you have a 3D printer to receive it.
The Americans should be concentrating on there obese problems over there, there gun laws, poverty, there education instead of putting billions of dollars into teleporting people to where??? The Americans are so full of it that they sometimes actually majority of the time they waste money were it go on something worthwhile…. Americans are stupid.. Priorities up there own arses…
Ever been over there Paul and actually spend time talking to Americans? I find them very welcoming and warm. They have smart and stupid people, a bit like here.
How the hell can you red thumb that quote unless your an obese American that has a gun with no education and lives in squalor!!!
I am on about the people that issue money to likes of these gob shites to explore the the possibility of teleporting when they could be authorizing money to something worthwhile.. I am not talking about the General Public get off your high horse you do gooder!!!
Paul, I think you should volunteer for the first human teleportation
Haha: “There education”. Where education?
Why when I can just get a plane, car, motorbike, cycle, run or walk and it won’t cost billions of tax payers money.. Plus by your name buckwheat Macmillan you have an stupid American name you could volunteer yourself!!!
Paul. It’s not your taxdollars so just quit being such a sanctimonious begrudger
It’s MacMillan III to you Paul, and I went to Yale.
You mentioned you went to Yale la-di-bleed in da-di… It just goes to show you mentioned Yale so Americans are up there own arse!!
..but definitely not stupid. I hope you’re enjoying using the internet considering it’s development was funded by the US government.
Everybody benefits from the internet true??? Who the jaysus is going to benefit from teleportation???
Paul, it’s just as well European Physicists like Faraday, Maxwell, Lodge, Hertz and Tesla didn’t share your “who will benefit” from attitude, otherwise we would be living similar lives to people in the 1800′s.
Will you benefit from teleportation??? Answer no…. So what’s the point??
And then you have to get some gilly to be the 1st muppet to try and get teleported.. More than likely it will be some American who was abducted by aliens yrs ago and will want to go back to them because the experience has changed his/her life…
The money doesn’t actually disappear, you know? It gets paid to researchers, scientists, technicians, engineers, manufacturers, who then pay tax, spend money and occasionally create worthwhile things.
Fair enough Paul. I’m not going to get into a discussion with someone that is obviously trying to wind people up. Adios.
I’d teleport george bush jnr into the heart of mecca during the hajj
Teleport any Christian, Jew or other non Muslim into Mecca hajj or no hajj and see what happens. ..
Whats the fuss about?i used to drive a teleporter on the building sites and im still in one piece!
You first.
This is eejitry. Please don’t invent this or time travel it will screw the world
have your say