Mary Fitzgerald (trade unionist)
- Mary Fitzgerald (trade unionist)
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Mary Fitzgerald (also known as Pickhandle Mary) (1890 - 1960) was a South African political activist and is considered to have been the first female trade unionist in the country.
As a typist for the Mine Workers Union in Johannesburg she was appalled by the conditions under which miners worked and became involved in related industrial action.
Accounts on how Fitzgerald acquired her nickname differ. According to some sources she spoke at a protest meeting during a strike by tram workers in 1911, brandishing a pick handle that had been used by police to break up the strike. Other sources attribute the name to an incident in the same year, when a group of protesting women broke into a hardware store armed with pick handles.
Fitzgerald is commemorated in the name of the Mary Fitzgerald Square in Newtown, Johannesburg.
References
Categories:
- 1960 deaths
- South African trade unionists
- South African women in politics
- South African people stubs
- Workers' rights activist stubs
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