P&O Ferries - major announcement today. All ships in port

[cakeorwine]

Gosh. I wonder what's going on

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60779001

[quote Alexandra2001]@prh47bridge P&O isn't any old company, its a vital means of transport of goods in and out of the UK.

a: Incredible the Govt were clueless, then again it probably isn't.

b: Shouldn't be sold off to despotic countries and then sold again to an adversary

c: Most of europe manages just fine without such a "Flexible" labour market.[/quote]
It is not the only company transporting goods in and out of the UK. They carry around 15% of freight in and out of the UK. So yes, they are important.

I repeat, the government does not spy on companies. They were almost certainly aware that P&O were in difficulties but, unless P&O told them, there is no way they could have known about P&O's plans to sack all their workers. The law required P&O to notify the government of their plans. It appears they did not do so.

We are not a command economy. Unless you want to nationalise everything, any company can end up in the hands of foreign powers.

Most of Europe has similar arrangements on agency staff to the UK. Agency workers actually form a smaller proportion of the UK workforce than the EU average - agency workers are around 1% of the UK workforce whereas across the EU the figure is 2.6%. So no, most of Europe does not manage fine without this flexibility. Most of Europe thinks it needs this flexibility more than we do.

@Peregrina

Outlawing the use of agency staff instead of permanent employees would destroy the business of anyone who works as a contractor and the livelihoods of anyone who wants the flexibility of working as agency staff. It is one of those things that sounds like a simple fix but really isn't.

Maybe - but I have worked in places where agency staff and contractors were used far too often, when the real problem was that the management needed a kick up the backside.

So have I. It is a problem in some places. But I don't think banning agency staff is the solution. I'm not even sure there is a solution.

Oh dear!! Are your reading comprehensive skills a bit lacking, or do you not understand irony of nuance?

That was for @ Buffyajp

Weird that govt apparently had no inkling of what was coming - DP World are main investors in Thames Freeport (one of the Brexit flagship projects) and have worked closely with the govt.

Most ship crews are international, many come from Philippines, India, Russia...I think I read the replacement crew for the ferries are Columbian.

@prh47bridge Yet EU countries function perfectly well stopping critical infrastructure falling into foreign companies.

Germany recently stopped the sale of a pharma company being sold to the Americans.
France is equally robust...

UK on the other hand allows everything from freight to trains to nuclear power to shipping even hi tech to be sold to anyone, Chinese/Russian, doesn't matter.

Its one thing allowing a footie club to fall under Russian control, quite another to allow China to own a power station or the UAE/Russia to own a ferry company.

Yes the Govt should be aware of the overall state of P&O and be pro active.

Herald of Free Enterprise?

That was Townsend Thoreson, not P&O.

And when I crossed the channel on a renamed and repainted ferry all the seating still had the TT logos.

Yes our government is lax beyond belief.

[quote Alexandra2001]@prh47bridge Yet EU countries function perfectly well stopping critical infrastructure falling into foreign companies.

Germany recently stopped the sale of a pharma company being sold to the Americans.
France is equally robust...

UK on the other hand allows everything from freight to trains to nuclear power to shipping even hi tech to be sold to anyone, Chinese/Russian, doesn't matter.

Its one thing allowing a footie club to fall under Russian control, quite another to allow China to own a power station or the UAE/Russia to own a ferry company.

Yes the Govt should be aware of the overall state of P&O and be pro active.[/quote]
Lots of things don't work well here in the UK which work better on the Continent (I'm avoiding saying the EU).

Competition law, for instance. Have you ever tried reporting a harmful merger to the UK Competitions and Markets Authority? Our entire housing market is built on a state-sanctioned monopoly controlled by government zoning and limits on self build.

Our constitution. No-one really knows what the actual rules are about important things like changing the constitution for Brexit and it can be done by a simple majority vote of 50% (unlike a weighted majority as in every other country) but no-one wants to give us a modern, single document constitution where our basic rights can be enshrined and not changed by a political majority of 50% voting on legislation.

Not to mention the abomination of the Scottish and Welsh devolution settlements, which don't even have bicameral parliaments to provide a check on the legislation passed there.

The whole of the UK is increasingly run like a state controlled monopoly where things like pay and conditions and basically controlled by the state to benefit big business and cronies.

Nothing like the unions in countries like Germany which work with industry in setting pay and conditions and which are by statute heavily involved in the negotiating process. Here we have some unions which have been traditionally so left wing that they contributed to the decimation of entire industries, and in doing so, played right into the government of the time's hands.

@EvilPea

The government do fuck all to protect employment rights in this country.

And consumer rights. Vodafone is currently denying to me that the right to rejection under the Consumer Rights Act exists and I cannot return a faulty phone bought less than a month ago.

The company secretly hired security guards on mass to escort the P &O staff out the building, in case of protest.

A lovely way to treat people.Not

**The whole of the UK is increasingly run like a state controlled monopoly where things like pay and conditions and basically controlled by the state to benefit big business and cronies.

Nothing like the unions in countries like Germany which work with industry in setting pay and conditions and which are by statute heavily involved in the negotiating process. Here we have some unions which have been traditionally so left wing that they contributed to the decimation of entire industries, and in doing so, played right into the government of the time's hands.

Very true

Any yet people keep voting for Johnson and his gangsters UK is the sick man of europe!

There's a protest TODAY at 4pm in London outside P&O's parent company:
16 Palace Street
SW1E 5JQ
Very near Victoria and St. James' Park tube stations

@jessy100

Any yet people keep voting for Johnson and his gangsters UK is the sick man of europe!

They don’t keep voting for him. He’s won a single general election and, if I were him, I wouldn’t be counting on winning the next one.

(Boris) won a single general election and, if I were him, I wouldn’t be counting on winning the next one

A welcome thought, Blossom, but with a working majority of 80 I wouldn't want to assume too much

Let's face it, with all the crap he's been associated with he'd probably be gone already if it wasn't for that majority ...

There’s photos online of the agency workers sat dockside waiting to board! This has obviously been planned for ages! Agency workers aren’t U.K. nationals apparently, so yes cheaper labour

The three they spoke to on BBC yesterday were U.K. nationals. Hired last week.

Haven't read the whole thread so I don't know if this has been mentioned, but the letter from P&O's CEO said:

"... severing the contracts of all 800 Jersey-contracted [my emphasis] seafaring colleagues with immediate effect ..."

which suggests that their employment contracts were done via Jersey and maybe UK employment law doesn't apply.

This from the GB News website:

"Travel journalist, Simon Calder, emphasised to GB News that many P&O workers could be on contracts based in Jersey, which are covered by maritime law and not UK law."

www.gbnews.uk/news/po-reflagged-to-cyprus-after-brexit-cashed-in-on-furlough-and-paid-shareholders-200million-before-sacking-scandal/250881

And this from Nautilus International, a trade union, in December 2021 which refers to "P&O Ferries (Jersey) Ltd, P&O North Sea (Jersey) Ltd and P&O Irish Sea (Jersey)"

www.nautilusint.org/en/news-insight/news/members-with-pando-ferries-accept-pay-offer/

So this may be an example of the murky ways the maritime industry adopts the lowest level of employment rights by circumventing the national laws of the countries in which they operate.

Am not defending maritime law if that is an entity and I understand the maritime dimension is affecting what domestically would appear to be covered by TUPE and other provision but 'to be fair to maritime law', if a ferry travels between two countries then which countries laws should apply? If it's flagged somewhere else then what? If a cruise liner travels to many places is the protection the best or the worst on offer? If it's home port is somewhere with no worker protection at all then what? I understand that some Maritime law provisions might offer positive protection for some workers, compared with the absolute absence that some jurisdictions would provide.

That said, this situation appears terrible. I'm surprised no red top has identified and publicised any UK Board who presumably would way they acted in their companies' interests... It will be interesting whether this will enhance their employability - 'Proud to have delivered this secret operation to enhance shareholder value' or whether any subsequent employer would take a different view.

@Zilla1

Am not defending maritime law if that is an entity and I understand the maritime dimension is affecting what domestically would appear to be covered by TUPE and other provision but 'to be fair to maritime law', if a ferry travels between two countries then which countries laws should apply? If it's flagged somewhere else then what? If a cruise liner travels to many places is the protection the best or the worst on offer? If it's home port is somewhere with no worker protection at all then what? I understand that some Maritime law provisions might offer positive protection for some workers, compared with the absolute absence that some jurisdictions would provide.

That said, this situation appears terrible. I'm surprised no red top has identified and publicised any UK Board who presumably would way they acted in their companies' interests... It will be interesting whether this will enhance their employability - 'Proud to have delivered this secret operation to enhance shareholder value' or whether any subsequent employer would take a different view.

For a situation such as this, it depends on where the employee is ordinarily resident. If the employee is ordinarily resident in the UK, they can claim through the UK courts under UK law. If someone is based outside the UK, they may still be able to claim through the UK courts under UK law if they have a sufficiently strong connection with the UK. For ship's crew, the ship is definitely not their ordinary residence. If P&O think they can ignore UK employment law by employing UK residents through a Jersey-based subsidiary, I believe they will find they are wrong.

A welcome thought, Blossom, but with a working majority of 80 I wouldn't want to assume too much

Have you seen how tiny some of his MPs’ majorities are? It’s a handful of votes in some constituencies.

It appears that Across the UK, 141 seats out of 650 were won by a margin of less than 10 percentage points. Almost all of those are Tory.

Aside from anything else, how on earth can having a brand new crew, who don't know each other and don't know the ship, be safe? Would you want to sail in a ship which none of the crew have more than a few hours experience of sailing?

There would usually be a handover and familiarisation procedure, and the crew will be qualified for their various roles. Perhaps this is why the ferries are waiting in port for a few days?

But how can there be a handover when the existing staff were all marched away? Even if all the new recruits know their jobs, they still haven't worked together and won't know the ins and outs of the various ships.