With the threat of forceful breaking of the picket line on April 18th the call  went out and by the time Victorias Finest arrive to do their duty they find   4- 5000 people  gathered in support of the MUA dockers determined that it wasn't gonna happen...

  Totally  outnumbered the police stand off, making a few optimistic feints towards the crowd, but never really seriously trying it on....

  The feeling is electric....spiky punks stand and links arms with burly wharfies on one side and grannies on the other....searchlights try and pick their way through the swathes of thick smoke pouring from the fires lit to warm ourselves as the news and police choppers circle
overhead...

   With the arrival of several hundred building workers at 7am on the sat morning the police finally admit defeat and withdraw to lick their figurative wounds and try and wait for further orders....

  As the day goes on people come and people go....the numbers up and down but never less than a few thousand with the comforting promise of doubling that again at the first sign of trouble .....barricades are fortified, awnings and tents spring up about the place as people settle in to wait it out....

    After a day of false alarms and drill after drill of linking arms `to hold the line' we ( Dishpigs and others) leave with the general call for food ringing in our ears...promising to return the next day.

So come noon sunday a few of us arrive in the ( now dead but fondly remembered) Food Not Bombs van....equipped with a huge pot of soup and enough to make another....

  Quickly setting up a table and and setting to on the veges  it was not long before the delicious aroma of the soup drew takers....cold and hungry from the long night.....

   From such small beginnings grew Food Not Scabs, a collective made up of DishPigs, Food Not Bomb'ers and others, which fed that multitude of  unionists and supporters 24 hours a day for going on 4 weeks.
  we soon got into the swing of it....churning out delicious soup after delicious soup along with a few vege stews and with considerable respectful remembrance to Rocky who in that first 24 hours ran a marathon of stir fries without pause....
  Amazed at our ability to operate non-stop providing good sustaining food the wharfies and other unionists and supporters couldn't do enuff for us....from a rickety trestle table with a single burner and a handful of bowls and cups,  Food Not Scabs soon found itself in a fully equipped kitchen tent with a new burner and as much cooking materials and utensils as we wanted....Having a
solid base became more and more important and most of us decided to move in for the duration with some living in the dead van whilst other slept under the cover  of the infamous PTU tent which tended to act more like a wind- sock cum weather balloon than a shelter....never-the-less
it did keep the sun off heh heh

  As time went on FNS's very quickly became a well organised force with a loose roster,regular supplies being brought in by the unions or donated by supporters, and enuff structure to be able to organise daily food drops  to the other smaller pickets holding the lesser gates around the docks as well as sending a bit of food to Webb dock from time to time.......

  For three and a half weeks we fed people from all walks of life...wharfies, retired, kids, unemployed and professionals...all coming down to stand beside the MUA ; to fight for their own right to organise and be unionised...t hrough supporting the rights of the waterside workers. As it was in the 1930's people were quick to see the significance of the waterside dispute and recognise that a defeat for the wharfies would mean a long ranging defeat for us all...

And throughout it all Food Not Scabs cooked,
and cooked
and cooked
  ...and even took up organising entertainment with various gigs put on over the time to entertain the picketers and keep up the public awareness as well as attract people to come down in support

    We marched beside the MUA at the mayday rally [with much cynical humour] we listening to the brown nosing politicians always found at the picket line looking for cheap  points, we linked arms at the sight of trouble and attended the drills, we even mounted a campaign against the use of disposable utensils.....but ALWAYS our biggest concern was whether there was any soup.

  Sadly what should have been a resounding victory for workers that would have sent the company dogs howling to their respective kennels was twisted, manipulated and finally sold out  with an agreement to sell off another 600 jobs and allow non-union labour into the maintenance
and cleaning positions....the thin edge of a malicious wedge which will eventually destroy one of the last remaining stronghold of militant unionism...

  Regardless of the abysmal sellout , many good and encouraging things came from the 30 odd days we gathered at the docks....the feeling of unity, the breaking down of false barriers between sections of the community and even different unions themselves and the level of autonomous co-operation that grew from the dock gates occupation is something not seen since the days of the tramways dispute or the deregistration of the BLF. Strong bonds were forged between union and community....employed and unemployed...bonds that will last and add further strength to the struggles that surely lay ahead....

  Food Not Scabs itself was hilarious.... an ever evolving experiment in a return to propaganda by
deed....it grew faster than we could ever have imagined....from a symbolic `pot of soup' on a old grey sunday Food Not Scabs became one of the central meeting points for cold weary and hungry picketers ...marathon `soup sessions'  would take place overnight....pots steaming in  the midnight hours and rumours of cooks that never slept....
   Incredibly successful in it own  right, providing essential food to the picket line......Food Not Scabs was also a demonstration of spontaneous collectivity...providing ourselves with a chance to practice what we preach....and others an example of our ideas in action....