Taking shore leave

THEY were the union hard nuts of their time. And the Iron Lady wasn't having any of it.

In one fell swoop Margaret Thatcher abolished the National Dock Labour Scheme in the summer of 1989, leaving firebrand unionists spitting feathers.

Her industrial fait accompli unwittingly gave the best start imaginable to the new kid on the block at Southampton port - 41-year-old Andrew Kent.

He had only been there for two weeks, as the youngest ever ABP port director, when the Prime Minister wielded her privatisation axe.

Docker leaders at Southampton docks threatened war as their labour monopoly, with all its ugly Spanish practices, was ripped apart after 42 years of unchallenged protection.

Yet more disruption took place as unions fought for new terms and conditions, which they wanted to emanate from a nationally negotiated framework binding on all ports.

Employers wanted those agreements thrashed out in each individual port.

In that turbulent year Andrew was already showing a capitalist mettle that has helped make the port a major player internationally.

He knew hundreds of local dockers, foremen, crane drivers and checkers wanted reassurance, and he appealed to their common sense.

He said at the time: "Other ports may choose to keep their heads in the sand and not acknowledge that the world has changed, but I believe our dockers have a great deal more sense than that."

It worked.

The repugnant practice of 'ghosting' was at an end - no longer would dockers be paid for work they did not carry out.

Out went artificial demarcation lines, overmanning and inflexibility.

The price to pay for that bolt-out-of-the-blue modernisation was the loss of 1,300 jobs at Southampton within 14 months, with more than 400 dockers remaining.

Andrew said: "Parliament had spoken, it had been abolished, and that was that.

"I think the dockers understood entirely that it was the end of an era.

"Quite a number of them told me 'Well, we'd had a very good lease, we'd had a good run and it was clear it wasn't going to last forever'."

Suddenly unfettered, Associated British Ports was making healthy profits.

Dockers set up their own breakaway stevedoring businesses or co-operatives, such as Southampton Cargo Handling, with voluntary severance payments of up to £35,000 each.

They revelled in a free market economy that offered previously wary shipping lines competitive choice when it came to dockside services.

For Andrew Kent, at the epicentre of this economic earthquake, the foundations of a brighter future had been set.

All he had to do now, and it was no easy task, was to carve out a global reputation for Southampton as the regional port to deal with.

The father-of-three spent the first ten years drumming up business across the world, crucially marketing the port.

"I spent a lot of time abroad saying to ship owners, who had memories of very bad experiences in UK ports, 'Hey, it's quite different now, we guarantee to turn your ship around in a day, to do all of these good things' and it took some time, clearly, to re-establish that.

"I think we can now claim to be one of the best ports in Europe in terms of service and productivity and cost."

Instead of 140 men taking two days to unload and load 16 years ago, a ship nowadays can be turned around in less than a day by fewer than 50 people.

ABP wanted shipping lines, and latterly cruise liners, to know quayside turnaround was now swift because a ship only earns its keep when on the move.

Andrew, who spent many years living at Chandler's Ford before moving recently to Chilbolton a few miles away, has a breathtaking view from his office.

Overlooking the docks and various berths, it means Andrew can keep a watch on the "factory floor".

He said: "The port has been so successful that we have got very successful customers who are growing their business and what we need to do is to be able to grow with their business and accommodate their growth, not just today, not just tomorrow, but in five, ten, 15 years' time."

Which brings us to ABP's bete noir - plans for a £600m container port at Dibden Bay.

The government threw out the company's application last April on environmental grounds against a background of protest from residents on the Waterside.

"Dibden was principally to deal with big container ships that are now the mainstay of the world's international trade. This is what the world's international trade is carried in and if the UK can't handle these ships efficiently and quickly then its international trading capacity is jeopardised.

He added: "Felixstowe, the other big container port, is pretty full and the ships are going to the Continent.

"Ships have been bypassing Southampton for a year, going across to the Continent to ports like Rotterdam, and Antwerp.

"The cargo is then being shipped back to the UK in small ships to various other ports, few of which are equipped to handle that sort of volume of cargo.

"When you do have politics involved in a decision like Dibden, you can't predict necessarily the rational outcome. But my personal view is that I think that was a bad decision by the government.

"I don't think it was a rational decision in that it didn't have any regard for the strategic issues.

"That hasn't sullied what's been a fantastic 15 years. There is a sense of pride - Southampton is back where it should be."