P&O Ferries news: Firm denies insensitive behaviour, ‘aims to have services up and running in a day or two’
Letter to employees from P&O CEO says new model will halve crewing costs
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P&O Ferries has once again defended its mass redundancies, announced yesterday, saying it aims “to have the first of our services running again in the next day or two” as it is losing around £1m per day that services do not run.
It also denied insensitive behaviour regarding the removal of employees, saying in a statement this afternoon: “The teams escorting the seafarers off our vessels were totally professional in handling this difficult task with all appropriate sensitivity.
“Contrary to rumours, none of our people wore balaclavas nor were they directed to use handcuffs nor force.”
In a letter to P&O Ferries employees seen by The Mirror, CEO Peter Hebblethwaite said the “new crewing model” would cut crewing costs by 50 per cent, calling it a “very difficult but necessary and pivotal decision, which was only taken after seriously considering all the available options”.
The RMT union is threatening legal action against the firm, calling yesterday’s move one of the “most shameful acts in the history of British industrial relations”.
Meanwhile MPs across each political party, including the transport secretary Grant Shapps, have condemned the ferry firm’s actions.
Read on for the latest news and developments.
Chamber of Shipping ‘confident’ ferries can operate safely with new agency staff
Peter Aylott, director of policy at the UK Chamber of Shipping, has said he is “confident” that the agency workers hired by P&O Ferries to replace its seafarers will operate ships safely.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I’m content and very confident that P&O will have put procedures in place to ensure that the individuals that are going to be in control of those vessels will be familiar with the ships, familiar with the systems and will be competent and qualified to operate those vessels in a safe manner.”
Trade union Nautilus International, which represents some of those fired, have urged the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) to “make sure the ships are safe” as the new crews are “unfamiliar” with the vessels and routes.
Nautilus International general secretary Mark Dickinson told the Today programme it was “an intensely worrying situation” as sailing ships across the Channel is “like walking across a six-lane motorway at rush hour”.
Redundancy ‘cuts even deeper for seafarers’
The Independent’s travel correspondent, Simon Calder, spent Thursday in Dover as the unprecedented story of P&O Ferries’ mass redundancy emerged.
He writes: “Hundreds of families depend for their livelihoods on jobs with the leading ferry operator between Dover and Calais. The impact is all the more painful at a time of soaring energy prices and a bitter economic climate. But a sudden sacking, online, cuts even deeper for seafarers.
“Being a member of crew on a ship has little in common with work on land. Many sacked staff told me that working on board means living on board, with a degree of dedication and camaraderie that is rarely found on land.
“People who work on ferries have chosen a lifestyle. When they lose those jobs, they lose much more than just wages: they lose their on-board family.
“‘Devastated’ was the word used more than any other on Thursday in Dover.”
‘Woken from my bunk and told to leave the ship because I was about to be made redundant’
Seafarers who were abruptly sacked on Thursday morning have been sharing their stories about how they heard the news. They do not wish to be named because a condition of the redundancy terms is that they do not speak to the media.
One long-serving crew member said he had been working nights, which meant that he was sleeping as normal at 11am, whereupon he was woken in his cabin and told to leave the ship immediately.
Once ashore, he learnt his decades-long career was over.
‘Not something government can stop’ says armed forces minister
The government is unable to prevent P&O sacking 800 seafarers and replacing them with cheaper agency staff, a minister has said.
Armed forces minister James Heappey said the company had behaved “disgracefully” but acknowledged the government was powerless to stop it.
“I think that is the reality,” he told BBC Breakfast.
“The government anger will mean very little to those who have been sacked. I do feel very sorry for those people.
“I do think P&O have behaved disgracefully and I wish that P&O had given the government and the unions more opportunity to engage with them to try to save those jobs.
“Ultimately, it is not something the government can stop P&O from doing. Now the focus will be on supporting those who have lost their jobs.”
Reporting by agencies.
P&O has ‘dragged industrial relations down to a Dickensian level’ - Simon Calder
In his weekly travel email, The Independent’s travel correspondent, Simon Calder has deplored the way that “P&O Ferries has dragged industrial relations down to a Dickensian level”.
He predicts: “Travellers who seek escapes this summer to France, the Netherlands or Ireland [will be] voting with their credit cards. After all, there are plenty of alternative Channel, North Sea and Irish Sea crossings – which is one reason P&O Ferries found itself in this mess.
“The hyper-competitive travel industry is an easy way to lose lots of cash, especially on the short sea crossing to Calais. But cutting losses need not be so cruel.”
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P&O Cruises: ‘We’re not P&O Ferries!'
Southampton-based P&O Cruises has been forced to clarify that is a separate company to P&O Ferries, which yesterday terminated 800 employees with immediate effect to save costs.
As cruise fans took to social media stating that they’d be boycotting the “P&O” brand, P&O Cruises - which has been owned by Carnival Corporation since 2003 - rushed to separate itself from the disgraced ferry operator.
“P&O Cruises is part of Carnival Corporation & PLC and as such is unrelated to P&O Ferries,” wrote its social media representatives.
In the 1840s, the cruise line was founded as part of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O), but became the separate company P&O Princess Cruises in 2000, which merged with Carnival Corporation in 2003 to create Carnival Corporation & plc.
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