'406 Days - The Debenhams Picket Line' film in Waterside Theatre

A series of events focusing on workers’ rights is being held locally to mark Workers Rights and Social Justice Week (WRSJW).

As part of the event, the documentary '406 Days - The Debenhams Picket Line' film will be shown in the Waterside Theatre on Friday, April 28 at 8pm.

'406 Days' tells the story of the pickets by Debenhams' workers after the retailer closed its Irish stores and filed for liquidation in 2020.

Derry Trades Union Council said it was honoured to support and facilitate the showing of the documentary, which symbolised the capacity for strength, unity and resilience any group of workers can possess and how these workers and their unbreakable unity stood up against big business and exposed a weak political system.

It added: "We will also be privileged on the night to welcome to Derry a number of the workers who took part in this inspiring and truly historic industrial action, providing us with a voice from the their picket line and a unique insight into this particular dispute. A lesson and study into how we should and can fight back against the establishment."

"The Debenhams' workers had agreed two weeks per year of service plus two weeks statutory in 2016 for any future redundancy.

"After receiving a generic email on April 9, 2020 sent to two thousand workers to say their jobs were gone in the middle of a pandemic, it informed them there jobs were gone and they would not receive their redundancy and they were to contact social welfare or citizens advice.

"The workers redundancy would have cost 13.5m euros, the three US hedge funds who took over Debenhams walked away with £315m from the liquidation.

"Through negotiations with the Irish government after 406 days of picketing the workers were offered a €3m training fund.

Most of the workers were female Grandmothers and Mothers and to date only 17% (519k) of the fund has been used and more than €2.9m will return to the Irish state in October 2023."

In November 2021, Fergus Dowd and Sue O'Connell released the book 'Tales From The Debenhams Picket Line'.

It sold out two print runs and was reported on by all Irish national newspapers. Following this, in March 2022, Irish film director Joe Lee began work with Fergus and the Debenhams Picket Line Group on the film.

'406 Days' tells the story of up to a 1,000 Irish Debenhams workers, the vast majority were women, made redundant through a generic email on the 9th of April 2020 in the shadow of the covid 19 pandemic. 

The owners of Debenhams had shut their 11 retail units in Ireland, including flagship stores in Dublin and Cork in a move many believed was a tactical insolvency. The workforce, were denied payment of an agreed redundancy package and voted to take official industrial action by blocking the removal of stock from Debenhams stores across the country. 

The workers remained on the picket lines for more than a year, making this, at 406 Days, the longest industrial dispute in Irish labor history. It finally ended in May 2021 through a compromise government retraining fund. 

The film ‘406 Days’ is a contemporary story about inequality and a struggle for fairness by an extraordinary group of ordinary people. 

This month the film won the Irish Council of Civil Liberties Award and Audience Award at the Dublin International Film Festival and was voted Best Irish Documentary 2023 by the Dublin Circle of Film Critics.