Last week's ballot for industrial action at Southampton port rekindled memories of the militant spirit which crippled the docks two decades earlier...

It was the year that the docks came to a standstill. A year when the port stared at oblivion.

In 1984 the all-powerful dock unions flexed their muscles and ordered their 1,100 members to down tools and walk out in a series of strikes over working practices.

And for 13 weeks the city's docks lay dormant and became a "no go" area for shipping from across the world with owners ABP fearing for its long-term future.

At the time desperate ABP chairman Keith Stewart said shipping companies had been told: "Go anywhere, but don't go to Southampton" and "We are now at the point where self-destruction is nearly complete."

This week - two decades on - and dockers have again voted to strike. But this time instead of fearing meltdown there has barely been a ripple of concern among dock bosses.

Defiant Andrew Kent, ABP's port director in Southampton, said: "There is no threat to the trade in the docks. The port is open and that is how it's going to remain."

The different response between 1984 and 2004 is stark - and reflects the dramatically changed character of the port, its employees and their working lives.

Andrew Kent's confidence comes after years of bitter power struggles that have seen the snarling unions, if not quite tamed, certainly muzzled.

Today just ten dock workers from a workforce of more than 1,000 are subject to collective bargaining. That is less than one per cent of the unionised labour of 20 years ago.

Gradually, since the strike that almost killed off the docks in 1984, bosses have been contracting much of the workforce to private companies.

This now means that ABP directly employs very few dockers and instead offers contracts to private companies that supply the workforce. In short, the workers are fragmented.

Dockworker Derek Burke, of Southampton Cargo Handling, is a shop steward with the Transport and General Workers' Union and used to be on the union's national committee.

He said: "I think it would be impossible to go back to those days of masswalkouts.

"There are a lot of different companies working here now and it would be very difficult to mobilise all of those people at the same time. Under national negotiating it was a lot easier.

"It's hard to say if we were better off back then. We certainly had more power and our pay and conditions were much better.

"But with local negotiations that we now have, we can tailor-make agreements to take into account all the local factors, rather than using a one-size-fits-all strategy.

"Things have changed over the years and now the dockers' aspirations are different. We are now a 24-hour port, we work long hours and we have adapted.

He added: "I think terms and conditions were better then. But today the equipment and technology is better and the job is a lot cleaner as there is a lot of roll-on roll-off cargo."

"There was great solidarity during the strikes.

"We were all for a common cause working together and it was quite refreshing to see ports struggling for the same ends across the country.

"People were worried about their future, mortgage and kids and you didn't go on strike lightly. It was a big decision. When we had ballots people always voted strongly for action. It took a lot of nerve."

Indeed it did - but frayed nerves held strong in 1984.

The year started ominously. In January an 11th-hour agreement was only just reached with 146 tugboatmen who were concerned about an increasing workload. It was a sign of the gathering storm clouds.

pril saw a one-day lightning strike among 1,100 dockers amid claims of gross mismanagement and that there were not foremen to cover shifts.

About 500 railway workers also signalled their discontent by rejecting a new management "economies" plan.

In May Daily Echo shipping editor Quentin Cowdry prophetically wrote: "Disruption has so far been niggling rather than serious, but all the signs are there will be another round of blood-letting this summer."

Later that month 200 dockers were sent home on full pay as ships layidle and fully laden because there were not enough foremen to supervise unloading.

After discovering that dock workers were taking it upon themselves to supervise some shifts, almost 150 foremen mounted an unofficial strike in June.

This began bitter infighting among the Transport and General Workers' Union - to which both foremen and dockers belonged - as the dockers voted against making the strike official and continued to cross the foremen's unofficial picket lines.

Tentative harmony was restored the following month when a national port strike was called and the dockers joined the walkout. It came in response to unregistered dock workers unloading a ship in Immingham Docks, Humberside.

The QE2 and P&O flagship were refused any special treatment to dock in Southampton and banned like all other shipping.The strike grew in momentum as tugboatmen were ordered by union bosses to join the action.

umours surfaced that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher would use troops from Marchwood to break the strike action and open up the port.

It caused chaos, with Southampton airport reporting a downturn in business, a fresh fruit shortage and lorry drivers and holidaymakers being left stranded.

The strike was temporally lifted as dockers helped pack ships with vital aid for poverty stricken Mauritania in West Africa.

After 13 days the strike was over following negotiations that union bosses said were "a clear victory".

But in August the dockers were out on national strike again because unregistered dock workers had been used in Scotland.

The strike, which was unpopular with many dockers, lasted three weeks before a unanimous ballot in Southampton Guildhall returned them to work.

It was estimated it had cost £2m and port authorities still insisted that almost 200 jobs would have to go.

In September a dispute over manning and shift arrangements saw the container port closed as 400 workers took voluntary redundancy with the axe still hanging over hundreds more.

In November, withstill no sign of a settlement, the chairman of ABP warned the future of the dock was on the line. He said: "The situation is a black as it could be. The prospects are bad, very bad."

The deadlock lasted until January 1985 when an agreement was finally reached and both sides declared they were happy with the deal.

But the year of striking and lost business had crippled the port. Major shipping companies had abandoned the docks and now had to be coaxed back.

Today, as memories of the strikes fade into history, Southampton is the UK's leading vehicle-handling port, and has long been the UK's principal cruise port, handling almost half a million passengers in 2003.

It is also a major handler of liquid and dry bulks and containers, and almost half of the UK's containerised trade with the whole of the Far East is handled at this port. And about 23 million tonnes of oil and petroleum-related products are handled at the oil refineries of Esso, at Fawley, and BP, at Hamble, each year.