Tag Archives: P&O

Government department cancels P&O contract over mass sackings

Moored: P&O ferries were subjected to safety checks – which many failed – after foreign agency workers on less than the minimum wage were hired to replace illegally-sacked UK staff.

It’s extremely rare that This Site gets to praise the government for doing something right.

So let’s give credit where it’s due to the civil servants at the Home Office and Department of Transport, who have cancelled a contract with P&O Ferries over the company’s decision to sack around 800 UK-based employees and replace them with agency workers from abroad, paid less than the minimum wage.

Border Force has terminated its agreement with P&O to provide contingency travel services to juxtaposed ports – UK border controls set up in Calais, Dunkirk and some railway stations in France and Belgium, where goods and passengers are checked ahead of travel.

The contract was to transport border staff to northern France if there was a problem at the Channel Tunnel and was the DoT’s only deal with P&O.

But the government has also awarded P&O’s owner, DP World, contracts to run two so-called Free Ports. Some of us have been waiting for those contracts to be cancelled ever since the unannounced (and therefore illegal) mass sackings happened in March.

If all contracts with this rogue company and its parent aren’t killed, then the Tories are effectively supporting the illegal removal of UK workers from their jobs.

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P&O boss calls Shapps’s bluff; what consequences will the firm face?

Grounded: P&O Ferries are being held in dock after failing government safety checks. What other penalties, can Grant Shapps devise for the firm until it delivers an equitable deal for its wrongly-sacked workers.

P&O Ferries boss Peter Hebblethwaite has refused to rehire 800 UK staff after Transport Secretary Grant Shapps warned him to take them back or face “consequences”.

Shapps’s bluff has been called. What is he going to do?

Shapps has already said the government is reviewing all its contracts with P&O Ferries and its parent firm, ports operator DP World. It’s hard to see how he could justify continuing any of those contracts in the face of this continuing defiance of the law.

And it has already grounded several ships after they failed safety checks.

Hebblethwaite knew before he embarked on the mass sacking that he had not informed the government of his intention to carry it out in the legally necessary time period.

But he has insisted that his decisions – and the illegal way he has carried them out – were the only way to save the firm, as it was losing £100 million per year.

If he were to reverse the sackings, he has said, then the whole company would have to be dissolved, with the loss of a further 2,200 jobs.

It’s a test of character for the Tory government.

Boris Johnson’s cronies have had no problem with hitting down at society’s most vulnerable people.

But now they are faced with a large employer, defiantly saying it is going to do whatever it wants.

Will the government have the courage to treat Hebblethwaite the same as any other lawbreaker? Or will it cave in to Big Money, as usual?

Source: P&O boss refuses to reinstate 800 sacked staff as row with Government escalates

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Is UK government creating problems for itself by detaining a P&O ferry?

Moored: P&O ferries in harbour. It seems that’s exactly where the UK government wants them to stay.

This is potentially problematic. What’s to stop P&O from complaining that the firm is being victimised by the government because of the way it sacked 800 workers – and that the Tories are trying to run it out of business as a result?

A P&O Ferries ship has been detained in Northern Ireland over safety concerns.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) said the European Causeway passenger boat had been held in Larne over multiple issues.

The MCA said there had been “failures on crew familiarisation, vessel documentation and crew training”.

Unions have raised concerns over a lack of experience of new crew, introduced after 800 of the firm’s staff were sacked eight days ago.

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Tories review all contracts with P&O Ferries and DP World over 800 axed jobs

Amazingly, the UK’s Conservative government is actually doing the right thing – so far!

The government is reviewing all its contracts with both P&O Ferries and parent company DP World after the shock firings of 800 staff over Zoom – exactly as This Site demanded over the weekend.

I didn’t believe a Tory government would actually do it. Even though it hasn’t happened yet, I am forced to applaud Grant Shapps (Transport Secretary) for putting the contracts at risk:

“For our part we’re reviewing all Government contracts with P&O Ferries as a matter of urgency and with DP World and, where possible, we’re looking to use other providers if indeed there are any contracts where the UK Government is involved; I believe at this point that they have been historic in nature rather than current,” Shapps said.

Not only that, but Shapps went further. He said the companies could face criminal prosecution and unlimited fines:

“It’s been quite clear that it’s been handled by the company absolutely disastrously, which is why we’ve asked the Insolvency Service to look at the notification requirements and consider if further action is appropriate – especially if, as we’re concerned, the relevant notice periods weren’t given, the relative consultation didn’t take place,” Shapps said.

“And I can inform the House that that would be a matter for criminal prosecution and unlimited fines as well,” he added.

And he said he was taking steps to remove the companies from influencing UK maritime affairs:

“We’re considering further steps we can take to remove P&O Ferries’ influence from British maritime, including positions on any advisory boards because again I don’t want to see that company, with the way the management has behaved, advising the way that British maritime is shaped and rolls out.”

Safety checks have been ordered on P&O ships – and they will be blocked from sailing if they fail.

And there are concerns that new agency workers from India are being paid just £1.80 per hour, although P&O has said this is not true.

Source: Transport secretary urges P&O Ferries to repair damages or face ‘unlimited fines’ over shock sackings – upday News UK

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Things we’re not likely to see: Tories cancelling P&O owners Free Ports contract

Moored: P&O ferries – and contracts offered to the firm’s operator, DP World – should be mothballed until reparations are made to the 800 workers they have wronged.

Remember This Site’s article on March 19, where I stated that any UK business in a position to do so should find a way to penalise P&O ferries’ owner DP World for the sacking without notice of 800 UK-based employees?

I should have included the government, of course – and isn’t it providential that the UK’s Tory government has awarded DP World two contracts to run Free Ports. On that subject, This Writer agrees with David Osland, below:

Any organisation that treats the people of the UK with contempt should not receive financial rewards of any kind from the UK government. That should be among the most basic conditions of forming a government.

Tory-voting ex-employees of P&O may have been surprised to see their struggle being spearheaded, not by Boris Johnson, but by Jeremy Corbyn:

His argument is a good one. So next week we should see the UK’s Tory government cancelling these two contracts – right?

Well, maybe not. This government runs on greed, and we don’t know what, if anything, was offered to ministers in return for these “lucrative” deals.

So: don’t hold your breath waiting.

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P&O owners should face consequences for ‘one of the most shameful acts in UK industrial relations’

Moored: P&O ferries in harbour – and that’s where they should stay until the firm – and its parent organisation, DP World – sorts out fair treatment for the 800 UK staff they illegally sacked without notice.

There’s no question that the mass sacking of 800 UK citizens working for P&O ferries was illegal.

The RMT union has described it as “one of the most shameful acts in British industrial relations”.

And it is: 800 workers were told their contracts had been terminated and were escorted off their ships by handcuff-trained, balaclava-wearing security guards, to be replaced by cheaper, agency workers.

The sacking of P&O’s entire UK seafaring staff without notice is contrary to even this country’s lax employment laws, because they demand that any employer planning to sack more than 100 staff must give ministers 45 days’ notice – and the government was not told about the plan at all.

If the government had been told, it would have been able to act on behalf of the workers, either to get better conditions of release, or to find alternative employment for them, or both. That can’t happen now.

Considering these circumstances, it seems clear that P&O’s behaviour is an act of intentional harm to its loyal staff.

Yes, there have been demonstrations of protest – but these have been hamstrung by the Tory government’s own support of “fire-and-rehire” practices that force workers to accept worse pay and conditions so bosses can profit.

Natalie Elphicke was caught out by this at a demo in Dover:

Apparently Labour’s John McDonnell was also there – but his party leader, Keir Starmer, is also a (covert) fan of “fire-and-rehire” because he decided that the money problems he created for himself meant he had to fire around 90 staff, then take on 50 again on short-term contracts.

Protests are fine but direct action is better.

This Writer would certainly advise anyone who has booked passage on a P&O ferry to cancel and seek alternative provision.

I would advise anyone using P&O to carry freight to do the same.

The company is owned by a Dubai-based corporation – port operator DP World. Any UK business in a position to do so should find a way to penalise that organisation too.

Back in the day, the government would have sent gunboats to blockade their ports but our spineless, mendacious Tories wouldn’t dream of doing anything so bold.

The only successful way to negotiate with these people is to attack their profits.

Otherwise they get away with it.

Source: ‘Scandalous betrayal’: MPs condemn P&O Ferries for mass sacking of 800 staff | Travel & leisure | The Guardian

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‘Taking vac control’ – how many Brextremist bosses will leave before we realise we’ve been conned?

James Dyson: Legs-it rather than Brexit.

James Dyson – what a patriot he is!

The inventor of the famous Dyson vacuum cleaner was one of the most prominent UK business leaders to support Brexit in the run-up to the EU referendum in 2016.

After the result became known, he said leaving the Single Market would liberate the UK economy and allow the country to make trade deals around the world.

He said the UK should leave the EU without an interim deal and that “uncertainty is an opportunity”; and he said “we should just walk away and they will come to us”

How interesting, then, that he has decided not to be here when they do. Or should that be if they do?

Rather than stay in the UK and take advantage of all that opportunity he mentioned, Mr Dyson is moving his headquarters from Malmesbury to Singapore.

Angela Rayner articulated the feeling of many, I think, when she responded thus:

The message is clear: Mr Dyson doesn’t have faith in the UK’s ability to sustain his business, post-Brexit.

His words about “opportunity” and claims that foreign investment will “come to us” seem to have been just gusts of air, which is ironic for a maker of vacuum cleaners.

The announcement has attracted a wealth of criticism from those of us who don’t have Mr Dyson’s opportunities:

A Twitter user identifying as “Doogs” wittily suggested Mr Dyson was “taking vac control”.

Another, identifying as “Shop Steward” put our suspicions into words: “The thing is he’s a multimillionaire so he could stay here and still make a profit In fact he could stay here, improve workers pay & conditions, and still make a profit …but greed won’t allow that. No, profit must be maximised at all costs because enough is never enough.”

And the blogger Paul Bernal asked the question that formed the basis for this article’s headline:

I’m not sure either but Gavin Esler identified one almost immediately after Dyson:

It provoked this response:

I’m not sure who “the journalists of the Four Horses of the Apocalypse” may be, but they would be right to attack such people.

While P&O isn’t on record as having supported Brexit, its decision to abandon the UK is a clear signal to other businesses: Get out – if you can.

Dyson is on record, not just as a Brexiteer but as a Brextremist, and his decision reeks of the worst kind of hypocrisy.

He supported Brexit; he influenced other people to support it; and now he is abandoning us to the consequences while he scarpers, taking his business and any benefit it has for the economy with him.

Make no mistake: This man is toxic.

He has helped inflict economic ruin on the UK, both by encouraging us into Brexit and by taking his business out of the country before it happens.

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