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

P&O bought TT before the Zeebrugge disaster. Obviously afterwards they decided a re-brand was a good idea.

Mind you, fire and rehire seems to be a thing - British Gas did it too didn't they.

A spokesperson said: "P&O Ferries is not going into liquidation. We have asked all ships to come alongside, in preparation for a company announcement. Until then, services from P&O will not be running and we are advising travellers of alternative arrangements."

Liquidation isn't the only form of insolvency, they could go into administration where the company keeps trading while they try to find a buyer for all or part of the business. Sometimes administrations are 'pre-packs' where the deal is done behind closed doors and the company is effectively placed into administration and immediately sold before anyone, including general staff, know about it. I wonder if something similar has happened and they've used that a tool to make staff redundant because the purchasing company doesn't necessarily have to take on debts/liabilities (although TUPE might apply, I don't know a lot about that in insolvency situations).

Callipygion - Johnson has probably upset a lot of people but he wasn’t in Dubai, he was in KSA, not the UAE. For once in his life P&O defying the unions might not be his fault. Everything else is though.

Ah, thanks MissAmbrosia

An appalling amount of companies do do fire and rehire. Normally they do it clandestinely though, not wholesale and in the most newsworthy way possible.

What have the RMT been doing about this? Surely redundancy means the jobs don’t exist any more, you can’t just rehire agency staff into the same jobs. What a disgrace.

Redundancy is the reduced need for employees. A company can decide it no longer needs any employees. It can then staff its ships in a different way.

I remember some people voted Leave because it would ensure a better future and wages for UK workers. Interesting times.

Anyone know what the unions have been demanding?

They’ve sacked them all! 🤯

R4 saying some seafarers have been told they've lost their jobs and agency staff waiting though don't know if that's speculation or from the union or by their employer.

Useranon1I've never forgotten it as I saw it on the TV news - in the lounge of another cross channel ferry, the same day . It was horrific and IIRC was caused by TT trying to shave a bit off the crossing times by setting off before the bow doors were closed, the ferry in question turned a corner a bit sharply and basically scooped a whole lot of water on board.

After the disaster, ferry regulators introduced more bulkeads, ties etc so the trucks and cars on the car deck couldn't all just crash over to one side. But - again from memory - the cargo of vehicles all tipping down to the side as the ferry tilted, sealed its fate. Absolutely terrifying to imagine

What country are the ships flagged? If not U.K. or an EU country I think they can hire on lower wages basically

Redundancy is the reduced need for employees. A company can decide it no longer needs any employees. It can then staff its ships in a different way.

To some extent though what constitutes an undertaking and hence whether TUPE rights in the UK apply has case law and isn't solely at the assertion of the employer.

I remember the Zeebrugge disaster very well. A girl and her family from my school died. It was very sad.

I also don’t understand the loophole from unfair dismissal cases. Won’t they need to bribe staff financially to settle out of court?

Ha - this is to "support our shareholder" - in the statment reproduced by Ken Online there. Priorities eh?

KENT online lol. Sorry Ken

The "all staff made redundant" seems to still be speculation.

Although it may turn out to be based on fact, obviously.

Oh Mummy, how horrible

@girlmom21

If they were sacking all staff would they really be doing to so publicly and dramatically?

You can't really sack them half way through the journey in case they go rouge and sail off somewhere

Not sure how legal it is but I assume they have a HR dept.

I’ve known the nhs threaten similar. Change terms and conditions and threaten to sack anyone who disagreed. I had it happen to me in the nhs. My job was moved 40 miles away. Union said if I had 30 days notice it was allowed. 🤷🏻‍♀️

@NeedAHoliday2021

Anyone know what the unions have been demanding?

What are you insinuating? There have been no 'demands' as there has been no notice of redundancies.

@WeirdArchitecture

I remember some people voted Leave because it would ensure a better future and wages for UK workers. Interesting times.

That’s not working out well at all!

Someone has said on twitter that as they're registered in Cyprus and due to the nature of the business UK employment law doesn't apply. I don't know enough about it to comment on whether that's true or not, but thought it quite interesting.

Replacing a staffed helpdesk with an AI tool might have extinguished the undertaking hence enable redundancy to be claimed. Replacing a staffed helpdesk with a slightly different staffed helpdesk run by agency staff or outsourced workers replacing in-house employees need not extinguish an undertaking and disallow 'that's my job there' successful TUPE claims.

Presumably the redundant (effectively sacked) staff will now have the option to apply to the agency to perform their own job on zero hours contracts. This is what British Gas did. Appalling.