Hungry vox pops

TOM ORCHARD, 71: "We worked in asbestos so thick it was like it was snow. For morning tea you'd sit on hessian sacks full of asbestos - you ended up chewing the bloody stuff. Eight out of 10 blokes on those wharves have got the asbestos plaques, mesothelioma, or died. So many more will die. The Hungry and Dusty Mile should never be forgotten."

ALAN OLIVER: "All of the things the common man has at some point end up belonging to the wealthy. Let them have their million-dollar squats on the harbour, just leave us the name. At least leave us the bloody name."

ARTHUR BROWN, 91: "This is where we abolished the 24 hour shift. Our campaign slogan was 'the nights were made for love'. We'd get into the ship holds and lift out these bloody enormous loads of wool, pig iron, soda ash, and asbestos. They've dropped like flies, the old wharfies - dozens of them. They all got asbestosis. That was their reward."

KEN PEEK: "I worked there 25 years walking up and down the Hungry Mile day and night. Sulphur jobs, asbestos, lead, passenger cargo. It was hard work, long hours, all hours. It should be dedicated to the workers."

GEORGE GOTSIS: "It's historical. We remember the struggles of the time. A lot of battles were fought there for workers' dignity. We won job security, super, penalty rates, holiday loadings. Before there were no conditions at all."

LEN DONALDSON, 78: "I remember being covered with soda rash from lifting the stuff all day and night. But I had a young family to feed. So I kept at it."

HARRY BLACK: "They were pitted against each other because this was the kind of environment that employers like to develop, with one against the other, dog eat dog and so forth, and yet they survived and they survived by coming together in defence of working conditions, to improve working conditions, to have a period when they were led by people who were determined that we should work under decent conditions, proper conditions and humane conditions, because many of the times in the The Hungry Mile they were not humane conditions."

RUSSELL GOW, 80: "You might get a job working wet hides with maggots running out of the bags; maggots all up your arm and over your face. But the men working there, the friendship of the delegates and the friendship of the union - that's what I remember most. You always had a friend when you were in the union. No one was against you and that's what made the job so good, that you knew that every day when you got up it was a pleasure to come to work because of the comradeship that was on the waterfront."