P&O Ferries backlash grows after firing 800 workers

A backlash against P&O Ferries is growing after the firm sacked 800 staff without giving them any notice.

The UK government said it will review its contracts with P&O after it fired its employees with plans to replacing them with cheaper agency workers.

A chorus of cross-party MPs described P&O's actions as "callous", "disgraceful" and "dastardly".

Labour compared P&O's treatment of its workers to the "action of thugs" while unions threatened legal action.

P&O Ferries sparked outrage on Thursday when it sacked nearly a quarter of its staff via a video message, telling workers it was their "final day of employment".

The RMT union called it one of the "most shameful acts in the history of British industrial relations". There are protests planned on Friday across the ports of Dover, Liverpool and Hull.

P&O worker Andrew Smith said he felt "utter dismay" after working for the company for 22 years.

"It's our lives," he said. "It's how our families have grown up, knowing that this is what we do, and it's just been turned on its head within a matter of hours."

Maritime minister Robert Courts said he was "frankly angry at the way workers have been treated" which he told the House of Commons was "wholly unacceptable".

"Reports of workers being given zero notice and escorted off their ships with immediate effect while being told cheaper alternatives would take up their roles shows the insensitive nature by which P&O approached this issue," he said.

He added that he did not expect critical goods and services to be hit by the sudden drop in capacity, but travellers "should expect some disruption over the coming days".

Mr Courts said the company had told him it will be suspending services for "a week to 10 days while they locate new crew" on the Dover to Calais, Larne to Cairnryan, Dublin to Liverpool and Hull to Rotterdam routes.

Labour shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh said: "There are images circulating of what we are told are handcuff-trained security, some wearing balaclavas, marching British crew off their ships.

"It is beneath contempt. The action of thugs."

Conservative MP Huw Merriman, who chairs the Transport Select Committee, said P&O had made an "appalling error". "If they do not reverse immediately and reinstate the employees and follow proper process, it's hard to see a way back for them commercially," he said.

He asked that the government "does everything within its power and influence, including tabling emergency legislation if needed, to ensure that this appalling employment transaction cannot be completed".

Mr Courts said it was "a fast-moving situation" but he would review "what arrangements exist as we go forward".

Former transport minister Sir John Hayes criticised the "capricious, careless, callous" decision by P&O Ferries, and suggested the government should "recover any monies granted to P&O during the pandemic" in a bid to reverse it.

P&O claimed almost £15m in government grants in 2020, which included furlough payments for its employees.

Sir John added: "Don't let anyone tell me this is the free market. The free market put little girls in factories and boys down mines, and both at risk on the high seas; we thought those dark days had gone - P&O are either too dim to see that or too dastardly to know it."

Dover MP Natalie Elphicke described said the way P&O and DP World had acted as "shabby, disgraceful and utterly unacceptable".

P&O Ferries said the decision to lay-off 800 workers was "tough" but "not be a viable business" without "making swift and significant changes now".

It said: "We have made a £100m loss year on year, which has been covered by our parent DP World. This is not sustainable. Without these changes there is no future for P&O Ferries."

P&O Ferries is one of the UK's leading ferry companies, carrying more than 10 million passengers a year before the pandemic and about 15% of all freight cargo in and out of the UK.

However, like many transport operators it saw demand slump in the pandemic.

P&O is owned by DP World, the multi-national ports and logistics company based in Dubai. It paid a £270m dividend to shareholders in 2020.

Transporting up to 15% of all imported goods into the UK, and carrying 10 million passengers every year, P&O Ferries would've looked a profitable bet when it was bought up by the Dubai-based ports operator DP World.

But that was before the pandemic savaged the travel industry.

DP World asked the UK government in 2020 for £150m of direct aid to safeguard what it called vital supply routes and jobs.

But, as the company had claimed more than £15m in grants and furlough assistance - and paid out £270m in dividends to shareholders - that was turned down.

With fuel costs escalating, DP World now states that the losses it's making on P&O ferries - £100m last year - aren't sustainable.

So it is cutting other key costs - staffing - to survive.

But this announcement comes days after DP World, now owned ultimately by the Dubai government, revealed it made over £8bn in global revenues last year.

It is also behind ports at London Gateway and Southampton. After Thursday's announcement some may question the wisdom of the company's involvement in such vital infrastructure.

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