THE women employees of Dunnes' Stores at Dublin's ILAC centre were in no doubt. Standing in the Mandate picket line right across the entrance to the shop off Moore Street, they "knew" that if Ben Dunne was still running the company they would not now be on strike.
Shop steward Tricia Monaghan, who will have been employed by Dunnes for 24 years tomorrow, said Dunnes workers were "guinea pigs" in a grander design. "Roches Stores and all the other stores are looking on. If we give in on this, it'll be their staff next."
At the entrance on the Henry Street side of the ILAC, a small minority were breaking the picket.
"They're just doing it to annoy us," said Patricia Keaton, embracing a Mandate placard. Two young men in school uniform walked through the picket line, saying they were looking for trousers.
"What's it about?" asked one as he walked on by.
At Dunnes in the St Stephen's Green Shopping Centre they were on speech strike also. The picketers had talked freely until a shop steward arrived on the scene.
He referred all queries to union head office. He would not identify himself. He would not comment. Meanwhile, the strikers had arranged a phalanx of placards across one entrance and a line of bodies across the other. A middle aged woman was at pains to explain how she had bought a dressing gown on Sunday and it, had no belt on it, and she went into the shop.
Inside Mr Ken Hom told an empty kitchen utensils section enthusiastically about his wonderful wok, on a TV monitor.
At Cornelscourt, all was sweetness and light. The strikers sat along the red brick wall, holding placards, ice pops, cola and water bottles, sandwiches, newspapers and radios. Shop steward Peter Ryan was "very, very sad it had to come to this".
Dunnes inside was vastly empty, its perishables section as bare as Old Mother Hubbard's cupboard.
"Much quieter than usual," said Maria McNulty, of Cosmopolitan newsagents in the Cornelscourt centre. Ms Linda Mullaney, of Peter Mark hairdressers, explained that five of their 12 stylists had been sent to other salons for the duration of the strike, while at Costello Jewellers takings were down 90 per cent.
Mr Eoin Costello was planning to close at lunchtime and remain closed until the strike ended. What perturbed him most was that the Christmas Sunday trading issue was not even being dealt with in the present dispute.
It had cost the shop 15 per cent of its Christmas trade last year, when Dunnes didn't open on the last three Sundays before Christmas. And what struck him as particularly unfair was that, despite the strikes, his business still had to pay Dunnes (also the landlords at Cornelscourt) full rent.
