P&O Debacle

[Lozzer]

What is the official explanation for the mass redundancies? In 2022 how can one lose one's job without notice? If I was in government I would be looking at revoking their licence to operate in this country until its sorted.

 

[TimR]

In case you’d forgotten, which is plausible given recent events...if you were in govt with this bunch of n’aer do wells, you’d likely be drinking down the boozer ( ya mates boozer), gaffawing at joe public, the gullible bunch of tw4ts we are...!
Seems the PM’s top team of razor sharp, political operatives were, by their own admission, caught completely unaware.
I’m not sure it is legal..
How can it be cheaper to get agency in either..? Untrained...?
Taking back control...what a joke!

 

[Ewan]

The agency staff are employed from overseas, on the equivalent of £2.40 an hour - so considerably cheaper. I don’t think the Middle East based owners of P&O give a monkeys about UK employment law.

 

[philw696]

Just been reading about what these new recruits are being paid.
How can they live on that pittance ????

 

[Zep]

I think, legal or otherwise (no one really knows right now) they have totally screwed the pooch with their PR. Leaving themselves wide open to criticism and other actions.

On the legal side, while it isn’t unheard of, a big corporate not having good legal advice would be scandal in itself.

Horrible for the people involved that’s for sure.

 

[TimR]

Didn’t P&O also take a handout to keep them afloat(!) during lockdown...?
Reminds me of the banking bailout.. They were not held to account when they pretty much refused to lend to those who’d bailed them out with their tax dollars..

 

[Nibby]

The Arabs have employed their own people to work in the stable yards they own in Newmarket, now doing it to P&O. Someone needs to have a serious word with them, they're becoming very unpopular.

 

[Scaf]

It is terrible for sure.

I imagine the redundancy reasons will be that the jobs are been moved overseas so the job no longer exists in the U.K.
Any other explanation will be in breach of our employment law as of the job still exists (in the U.K.) there is no redundancy.

a legal fudge.

 

[Zep]

It is terrible for sure.

I imagine the redundancy reasons will be that the jobs are been moved overseas so the job no longer exists in the U.K.
Any other explanation will be in breach of our employment law as of the job still exists (in the U.K.) there is no redundancy.

a legal fudge.

From what I have read, some of the agency staff that were to replace the original staff were UK based and recruited without being told who they were going to work for. So I can't see how that would comply with the requirement to consult on job losses, particularly if the union was recognised. I am sure we will find out what sort of wheeze they were trying on soon.

 

[UlstermanAbroad]

I suspect that P&O will be relying on the defence that their ferries are registered and flagged in (Greek) Cyprus.(since 2019) However, whether an employment tribunal will accept that, when employment terms and conditions did not also change at that time, I'm unsure.
Apparently P&O are attempting to buy their way out of legal actions by offering employees whatever amount they would've been due, had they sought a legal remedy. I suspect many will take this, as the waiting time for an employment tribunal case to be heard may be several months or substantially more.
The jobs have not moved. They are still onboard the various ferries. You can't argue that this is a redundancy situation, because the jobs have not disappeared. For example, by automation. If this was a shore based job, where jurisdiction was not in doubt. Then there would be no question that the company has egregiously breached employment legislation designed to prevent just this thing. Prevent or provide for the compensation due.
Unfortunately for the employees, I believe that they've lost their strongest card. That being the ferries on which they worked. If they'd been able to co-ordinate and seized the ferries in question, that might've encouraged DPWorld, the company's owner, to buy off the employees at an enhanced amount.
I see no wish on the part of the RMT to widen this dispute. Nor, do I see the government weighing in to any great effect, because the amount of freight moved by P&O is of strategic importance to UK plc.
I suspect that someone in P&O and/or DPWorld, has taken a look at world events and judged this to be an opportune moment to 'bury bad news'.
DPWorld made a $2.3Bn profit last year. Or similar. P&O's books might not have looked great following the pandemic, but they did take government money where employees were furloughed. They operate a near cartel with competing ferry companies, so it could be argued that the company could've traded it's way out of current losses. But, obviously that wasn't good enough for DPWorld's owners. Profits before people is what this looks like and if it is the case, then as soon as we no longer rely on Middle East oil, the next dictator who wants to invade Kuwait, Saudi, UAE and so on, should not be stopped by British blood and treasure.

 

[UlstermanAbroad]

From what I have read, some of the agency staff that were to replace the original staff were UK based and recruited without being told who they were going to work for. So I can't see how that would comply with the requirement to consult on job losses, particularly if the union was recognised. I am sure we will find out what sort of wheeze they were trying on soon.

I'd bet my bottom dollar, they weren't told. Given that they'd be replacing their friends and neighbours.

 

[Zep]

I'd bet my bottom dollar, they weren't old. Given that they'd be replacing their friends and neighbours.

Indeed. I read about one case, that’s not to say it applies across the board.

 

[CatmanV2]

defence that their ferries are registered and flagged in (Greek) Cyprus.(since 2019)

Interesting thought. Naively if someone had asked last week, I'd have gone with the basis that the country in which you are paying tax is the country who's employment law is force. Let's see how it pans out.

C

 

[Andyk]

P&O ferries and a Jersey company and as such the contracts are issues from an offshore company so the Uk law is not applicable which is why they have done what they have done and as such believe they have not broken the law. In the UK you have to consult with colleagues but this is not relevant as a Jersey offshore company. Plus as they are saying they are compensating all for the lack of notice as part of an enhanced redundancy package then again this part gets past the legal side anyway. Although they could give each colleague an extra £50 and say it’s enhanced so open to interpretation. It is shocking what they have done and shouldn’t be allowed to happen in this way in this day and age but I would imagine they have not broken any laws due to the above and would have had their legal team all over it before doing it…Crazy though.

 

[mjheathcote]

I've had project equipment delivery problems with Covid, Ukraine, and now P&O ferries (transport from Europe), what next?

 

[gb-gta]

This sort of cr@p has been going on for decades all over the place.

I remember working in Oslo around the turn of the century, we were being paid roughly £20/hr plus expenses on a big project. Got talking to an Indian guy working on the same project, an engineer. Was over with his family for 2 or 3 years.

Point was, he was employed by the Indian subsidiary, seconded over to Norway. His pay went into his account back home in India, with the company paying his accommodation and food (shopping) in Norway.

His hourly rate was 70p/hour…..

Therefore, what he couldn’t do was go out for a meal or drink in Oslo, because he’d have to pay for that himself, so buying 1 beer would have been about a days pay, a pizza 2 days pay!

 

[philw696]

This sort of cr@p has been going on for decades all over the place.

I remember working in Oslo around the turn of the century, we were being paid roughly £20/hr plus expenses on a big project. Got talking to an Indian guy working on the same project, an engineer. Was over with his family for 2 or 3 years.

Point was, he was employed by the Indian subsidiary, seconded over to Norway. His pay went into his account back home in India, with the company paying his accommodation and food (shopping) in Norway.

His hourly rate was 70p/hour…..

Therefore, what he couldn’t do was go out for a meal or drink in Oslo, because he’d have to pay for that himself, so buying 1 beer would have been about a days pay, a pizza 2 days pay!

When I last worked for Toyota Europe before Brexit employed by a English company and looked after really well nice hotels all expenses paid met some guys from Greece in the same hub doing the leather interiors.
They were paid a pittance and sharing rooms and making their own food etc.
Never been more embarrassed in my life as they were skilled guys like myself.
The World is very complicated.

 

[UlstermanAbroad]

P&O ferries and a Jersey company and as such the contracts are issues from an offshore company so the Uk law is not applicable which is why they have done what they have done and as such believe they have not broken the law. In the UK you have to consult with colleagues but this is not relevant as a Jersey offshore company. Plus as they are saying they are compensating all for the lack of notice as part of an enhanced redundancy package then again this part gets past the legal side anyway. Although they could give each colleague an extra £50 and say it’s enhanced so open to interpretation. It is shocking what they have done and shouldn’t be allowed to happen in this way in this day and age but I would imagine they have not broken any laws due to the above and would have had their legal team all over it before doing it…Crazy though.

According to the P&O Ferries website:
Registered Address:
P&O Ferries Holdings Limited
Channel House
Channel View Road
Dover, CT17 9TJ
That said, you could still be right. Employment contracts might be issued by a subsidiary based in Jersey.
Though courts tend to take a very dim view of arrangements where companies are obviously simply seeking to avoid their legal responsibilities by a convoluted arrangement of foreign registered companies.

The whole affair completely undermines the fine sentiments expressed on P&O's Corporate Responsibility web page
https://www.poferries.com/en/corporate-social-responsibility

 

[mjheathcote]

When I last worked for Toyota Europe before Brexit employed by a English company and looked after really well nice hotels all expenses paid met some guys from Greece in the same hub doing the leather interiors.
They were paid a pittance and sharing rooms and making their own food etc.
Never been more embarrassed in my life as they were skilled guys like myself.
The World is very complicated.

Was quoting a job for a German company installing some process plant in the UK.
Didn't win the project was told we were more than double the competition. We were still on the site when the competition arrived to install the said process plant. They were from Bulgaria. Was asked to quote another job from the same German company. Declined, and they simply couldn't understand why our UK labour was so much more expensive than the Bulgarian labour!

 

[MarkMas]

When I last worked for Toyota Europe before Brexit employed by a English company and looked after really well nice hotels all expenses paid met some guys from Greece in the same hub doing the leather interiors.
They were paid a pittance and sharing rooms and making their own food etc.
Never been more embarrassed in my life as they were skilled guys like myself.
The World is very complicated.

I worked in an IT project in the UK in the 1980s where we Accenture newbie keen programmers were paid about the same as the experienced-but-idle client programmers, but we were billed to the client at about the same rate as the the very experienced & productive contract programmers. At one point the Project Director announced that the client staff had to do all the coffee-runs for the team, as the Accenture people and the contractors were too expensive to use their time on that. We all very quickly killed that 'clever' idea.