Dock workers at the UK's largest container port have gone on strike for the first time in 30 years.
About 1,900 members of the Unite union at Felixstowe in Suffolk are walking out for eight days in a dispute over pay.
Unite said members rejected a 7% pay offer from the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company, which it said was below the rate of inflation.
A port spokesman said the strike was "disappointing".
A picket line formed early on Sunday as the strike began, and the union said it would be manned until 22:00 on each day of the walkout.
Miles Hubbard, from Unite's regional office, told BBC: "Very few people reported for work this morning.
"The picket line has been in place since 6am and we're getting great support from the public."
About 2,550 people work at the Port of Felixstowe - the country's busiest port, handling about 48% of the UK's container trade. Striking workers include crane drivers, machine operators and stevedores who load and unload ships.
Strike at key UK port to cost 'stack of money'
Port spokesman Paul Davey said the average pay for workers at Felixstowe was £43,000, and employees had been offered a 7% rise plus a single payment of £500.
He said the offer represented an increase of between 8.1% and 9.6%, depending upon the category of worker at the port, at a time when the average pay increase in the country was 5%.
"We've got a shrinking economy, we're going into recession... I think that's a very fair offer indeed," he said.
Speaking to the BBC Radio 4's Broadcasting House programme, he added the strikes were part of Unite's "national agenda".
"It serves their purpose well to have a strike here at Felixstowe... I know many of them [workers] feel they're being used as pawns in this game."
Freight transport body Logistics UK said it was "not expecting massive disruption" from the walkout.
A spokesperson for the trade association told the BBC: "Felixstowe is not a 'just-in-time' delivery port - everything coming in is scheduled well in advance.
"If it [the strike] goes on for longer than eight days then those using the port will be looking at alternative routes, but at the moment there is plenty of stock in the supply chain. Others have already been planning alternative routes - we're not expecting panic."
The spokesperson added: "As an industry, we are incredibly flexible and have been working for a while to put these goods into alternative ports if they have to be."
Major shipping group Maersk warned that it expected the strike to cause serious disruption with some vessels significantly delayed.
Dr Kamran Mahroof, associate professor in supply chain analytics at the University of Bradford, told the BBC: "Although a lot of the goods that pass through this particular port might be your fridges and laptops, there will be a lot of frozen goods foods that might also be passing through this channel.
"So there will be disruptions, but the importance here is to ensure that it is limited only for eight days as they say.
"Prolonging this might mean we might have to divert where goods go, but infrastructure might not be able to cope."
