P&O cancels services and tells ships to stay in port

[albaPhenom]

What does this whole thing have to do with Brexit?

I've not been posting in the general forum for a while but it seems like very topic gets spun around to a Brexit debate. How would this have panned out any differently if we were still in the EU?


Anyway, it looks like the government are already stating that they are utterly powerless here other than send DP World a nice begging letter with glitter and fragrances asking them "pretty please, can we have our furlough money back... otherwise we may have to stamp our feet and say harsh words until this passes out of the news-cycle and the general pop forget about the whole thing".

Apparently a Labour back-bencher brought forward a proposals for laws against "fire and rehire" last year but it was wholly rejected by the Government, apparently because it tried to cast it's net too wide... this is probably true but surely to hell the answer lies somewhere between that proposal and doing absolutely jack-****.

There's too many loopholes and not enough protections, here's one that large Kitchen supplier Wren Kitchens uses (my gf worked for them)... they give all new staff a 2 year probationary period, so that within that year if they don't like you for any reason, like unreasonably assuming you're entitled to any of your holiday days, then they can just fire you and get another one in on a 2 year period. Often they will fire you before the 2 years are up and re-hire you to reset the clock.

But the owners of companies like Wren pay our MPs huge sums of money in donations o expect absolutely F/A to be done about the situation.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Ive never noticed any reduction in wages of trades around here, ever.

Then you weren't in the game in 2008 to 2012.

I'm assuming the French crews were also let go in the same way?

I don't know about the French crews, but the Dutch crews working the Hull to Rotterdam route were retained according to the Dutch press. It is only UK-based employees who have been given the boot

No, never, and I've worked on many a site!
But those other definitions are the ones I am familiar with.

Tosher = brush hand

 

[Lower]

P&O are not claiming insolvency.

I'm not sure Wales online is the best source of legal expertise... but my opinion seems to be mirrored by those with more specialist expertise.

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/po-shock-mass-redundancy-legal-23422275

It is worth noting that P&O are claiming to be offering enhanced severance which means they can do as they like if you accept the terms. Given how this was communicated, those offers will certainly have to increase.

You don't have to be insolvent to make people redundant.

Its a real shame that P&O didn't have a union they could have worked with to find ways to save money without having to make the seafarers redundant in such a brutal way.

 

[Mottie]

You don't have to be insolvent to make people redundant.

I think if the company insolvent then you can do what P&O ferries have done. Just tell them you are redundant as of now. If the firm is still trading, I thought there had to be some consultation. I'm sure I read that up to a certain number of redundancies, consultation with the employee. Over a certain number, consultation with the union or an employee representative. I think the cut off number is 25 but I might be wrong.

 

[Lower]

I think if the company insolvent then you can do what P&O ferries have done. Just tell them you are redundant as of now. If the firm is still trading, I thought there had to be some consultation. I'm sure I read that up to a certain number of redundancies, consultation with the employee. Over a certain number, consultation with the union or an employee representative. I think the cut off number is 25 but I might be wrong.

Different rules for seafarers to standard employment law.

 

[motorbiking]

Indeed SEA contracts are slightly different to standard employment contracts, but they do not allow summary termination of employment without notice. There is a provision for self employed "workers" being seafarers, but they have additional rights, not less rights.

A company that is entering liquidation is able to summarily terminate, that was my earlier point. SEA rules are here: https://assets.publishing.service.g...ent_2_MLC_Seafarers_employment_agreements.pdf

Most of the rules are about working conditions and the right to be repatriated.

Its a real shame that P&O didn't have a union they could have worked with to find ways to save money without having to make the seafarers redundant in such a brutal way.

All consensus seems to be that the way they communicated the termination of employment was unlawful.

 

[Lower]

Indeed SEA contracts are slightly different to standard employment contracts, but they do not allow summary termination of employment without notice. There is a provision for self employed "workers" being seafarers, but they have additional rights, not less rights.

A company that is entering liquidation is able to summarily terminate, that was my earlier point. SEA rules are here: https://assets.publishing.service.g...ent_2_MLC_Seafarers_employment_agreements.pdf

Most of the rules are about working conditions and the right to be repatriated.

All consensus seems to be that the way they communicated the termination of employment was unlawful.

I don’t they’re terminating without notice, but in lieu of notice with an enhanced redundancy package, the enhanced bit they’ll lose if they challenge it.

However, even if it’s legal is not a good way to go about it.

 

[motorbiking]

Sorry but you cannot tell someone their employment is terminated without notice by way of redundancy and then advise them to look out for an email with an offer. Its vital that the offer is made before.

Offer, acceptance, termination if you agree or you follow statutory process. NOT termination, then offer. Clearly unlawful. Of course if the offer exceeds a years gross pay (or the 86k cap) then its not really an issue, but we don't know that.

Its a matter of fact that it was unlawful, the damages claim may be less than the offer, but its still unlawful.

 

[diy_fun_uk]

Regardless of the legal ins and outs, rights and wrongs, there's no denying the way they've gone about this stinks, absolutely stinks. Not sure if mentioned earlier in this thread however there's (possibly not substantiated) reports online they were engaging with a recruitment agency back in August, pre-planning for this.

Quite a few regular channel crossing people saying they'll no longer use P&O, however like many things give it a few weeks and the majority will have forgotten about this, or will opt for whoever gets them across cheapest.

 

[motorbiking]

Unfortunately with heavily unionised workforces you have to attack first and then patch up the damage. I imagine London Underground will be watching with interest.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

A few points about this.

As a result of Covid and Brexit traffic on truck routes is markedly down on 2 years ago, but much of a ferry companies' costs, such as ships, staffing, etc are fixed. So Brexit is part of the problem for boogering P&O

In order for the company to have bus loads of staff sitting at the ports ready to take over, someone in HMG would have to have issued entry visas and possibly work permits so these people could be here legally - before Wednesday. Which means that Johnson probably knew beforehand

P & O are effectively owned by the authorities of Dubai (DP World, the named owner, was a merger of their ports authority and Dubai Ports International in 2005 or thereabouts) and just where is Johnson at the moment? In the UAE, which includes Dubai, so of course he wouldn't be in parliament when this all kicked off (like he wasn't here for the Heathrow vote, or for the NATO meeting, etc)

And wasn't the RMT one of the unions which advised its' members to support Brexit?

 

[motorbiking]

P&O offers staff two-and-a-half weeks pay for every year of service with the company, pay to cover three-months notice pay and an additional 13 weeks wages to cover "the lack of advance notice".

For those with long service, that is quite generous if its as described. Someone with 10 years service will get just over a years pay, if thats calculated before tax, thats a good deal as the first 30ish k is tax free.

I can't see many people not wanting to accept those terms. I really struggle to understand a business case that can lose £25-30m in redundancy and still pay back. Allowing for minimum wage and agency fees, that wont break even for 5 years.

10% pay cut across the board would have yielded the same.

 

[Notch7]

According to a Times article the govt knew about this in advance

 

[The Samaritan]

The ex workers have been given a very, very generous package of redundancy. Many have been there for many years so will get quite a hefty sum. Some have been offered other jobs with the co.
P&O cannot continue to lose 100 mill a year and they are getting cheaper labour - good luck to them.

If p and o carried on as they did there would be nothing left so better as is now.

 

[Mottie]

P&O cannot continue to lose 100 mill a year

They could if they weren't paying £270m in dividend payments. Don't know how they did that though. I take dividend payments from my company but they can only be taken from profits.