The domino effect miracle

By Fr Joe Falkiner OP

This experience goes back to 1973. In those days in our country black people had almost no human rights, and were dependent on the goodwill of white people for anything they was needed.

In urban areas they had to live in so-called “locations”. White people, other than doctors, nurses and ordained clergy were not even permitted to enter these locations unless they had been granted a permit to do so. I, as an ordained priest, did not need such a permit, and I worked as assistant parish priest in such a location.

It was in that context that a young black parishioner, Benjy, a member of the Young Christian Workers in the parish, came to see me. He was newly married (I had performed the marriage), and his wife had now been fired by the factory at which she worked.

It seems she and three other young ladies had been concerned about their clothes being damaged by the grease on the articles they had to handle, so they had planned to hold a meeting with the other women in the factory with the aim of petitioning for some form of protective clothing such as aprons or overalls. They wanted the ladies to elect a committee to handle this petition. For just daring to suggest the setting up of such a committee, they had been summarily dismissed.

I must mention that in those days black people were not allowed to belong to trade unions or to elect shop stewards, so there was no representative to speak on their behalf. Benjy thought that perhaps I, as a priest, could do something on behalf of these four women.

Initially I had no idea what to do, so I approached a white trade unionist, a Catholic whom I had encountered the previous year, for some advice. Then the miracles started happening.

The first one was that he put me in touch with a good lawyer, and said he himself would find the necessary fees. God was truly inspiring him.

The next amazing thing was that the lawyer told me that the apartheid government had just that very month signed a new regulation concerning black factory workers. In order to prevent black people from agitating for trade unions, they were from now on to be allowed to have little committees in their workplace, and these committees could handle their grievances.

The lawyer knew about this, and that such committees had some protection in law. This miserable concession by the apartheid government actually helped us, as it seemed the four women had unknowingly been acting in precisely the way that this new regulation laid down.

But the problem was not yet solved. The women wanted their jobs back. The lawyer informed the firm of this new regulation and received no response. So he then suggested that I, as a priest, should go with this information to the managing director of that factory—a branch of a large overseas manufacturing concern—to plead for the ladies.

I did so, wearing my Dominican religious habit. The manager, a man from Britain, agreed to see me, but did not bother to offer me a chair. He immediately accused me of being one of “those people in Northern Ireland who are causing revolution”. He then added that the four women had probably been affected by “Chinese communist propaganda”, and that he would never take them back. After uttering these absurdities he dismissed me from his presence.

I reported all this to the lawyer, who was astounded. He said he would take the company to court if the women were not reinstated. But to do this, he would need evidence that would be accepted by the court.

Now came another miracle: we discovered that one of the parish council worked at that very same factory. He enquired among his fellow workers, and it turned out that two of the supervisors had been overheard talking in the mens’ toilet and had mentioned the reason why these women in their opinion deserved to be fired. Sixteen workers overheard this conversation and were prepared to sign affidavits to that effect.

So history was made: for the first time in South Africa a group of workers took their employer to court without having to strike. I too made an affidavit describing the interview I had had with the managing director.

The firm was forced to capitulate. The women got their jobs back, they received their wages for all the time they were without work, and they got their committee and the necessary protective clothing.

Now came the final miracle, the event that made these events so memorable for me personally. The day after the settlement I arrived at the church to find a queue of 30 or 40 workers wanting the parish to do the same things for them. They were mostly non-Catholics, but word had spread in the township that the Catholic Church was prepared to stand up for ill-treated workers.

Soon the members of the Young Christian Workers as well as the members of the new parish Justice & Peace group were working overtime just listening to all the stories, and helping people to organise themselves.

Because the security police started keeping tabs on us, many meetings were held on Sunday mornings at the same time as Holy Mass, so that the police could not tell who was at Mass and who was in such a meeting.

It wasn’t long before the government made a new regulation, allowing black trade unions, so the final upshot was that a number of embryonic trade unions covering a variety of local industries were established in these meetings at the church, with more than 3,000 members.

This was God’s presence in those dreadful days. I never cease to thank God that those days when black workers were totally at the mercy of their employers are now past, that we now have decent labour regulations. And I am grateful that I, as a priest, was able to play a small part in those events.