<\/p>\n
Britain’s P&O Ferries made 800 staff redundant with immediate effect and suspended crossings for the next few days, sparking a backlash from politicians and unions over reports it would hire cheaper agency workers instead.<\/p>\n
The shock move caused delays around Britain’s busiest port, Dover, and drew threats of a standoff as trade unions urged their members to defy any instructions to leave P&O ships.<\/p>\n
Owned by Dubai ports firm DP World, P&O is recovering from two years of disruption when COVID-19 prevented tourists from travelling on its routes between Britain, France, Ireland and elsewhere in northern Europe.<\/p>\n
P&O, which has almost 4,000 employees and operates more than 30,000 sailings a year, said it had lost 100 million pounds ($131 million) year-on-year and the business was no longer viable in its current form.<\/p>\n
“This is not sustainable,” a spokesperson for P&O said. “Our survival is dependent on making swift and significant changes now. Without these changes there is no future for P&O Ferries.”<\/p>\n
It told passengers alternative carriers would be available.<\/p>\n
Transport union RMT said it had advised its members who worked for P&O not to leave their vessels, responding to media reports that the sacked staff would be replaced by agency workers. The company declined to comment on those reports.<\/p>\n
The job losses come at a politically sensitive time for the government, with inflation set to reach 8% in April and consumers facing tax rises and soaring energy bills in what opposition politicians have billed a ‘cost of living crisis’.<\/p>\n
“I am very concerned about the news from P&O Ferries this morning and we will be speaking to the company today to understand the impact on workers and passengers,” transport minister Grant Shapps said.<\/p>\n
British unions and opposition politicians have accused some companies of using a “fire and rehire” tool which allows them to move staff on to weaker contracts with lower pay, as they seek to rebuild after the pandemic.<\/p>\n
“Unscrupulous employers cannot be given free rein to sack their workforce in secure jobs and replace with agency staff,” the opposition Labor Party said in a statement.<\/p>\n
In March last year DP World reported an 11% jump in 2020 revenue and said it would continue to invest in the segment even as it acknowledged that P&O Ferries and Ferrymasters had been through a “particularly challenging time” due to COVID-19. Read full story<\/p>\n
($1 = 0.7630 pounds)<\/em><\/p>\n (Reuters – Reporting by William James and Muvija M; Editing by Kate Holton, Jan Harvey and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n maritime professional<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Britain’s P&O Ferries made 800 staff redundant with immediate effect and suspended crossings for the next few days, sparking a backlash from politicians and unions over reports it would hire cheaper agency workers instead. The shock move caused delays around Britain’s busiest port, Dover, and drew threats of a standoff as trade unions urged their …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-maritime-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/29560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}