P&O Ferries ‘unsafe’ with new crew on board, claims union

‘We will not be reducing crewing numbers. We don’t have a business if we don’t have a safe business’ – spokesperson for the ferry firm

Port leave: the RMT union march at Dover on Friday (Simon Calder)

The boss of the main shipping union, the RMT, has claimed that P&O Ferries’ plan to replace its crew with cheaper labour is unsafe.

Mick Lynch told BBC Today: “We don’t believe it’s safe to bring a crew that’s never even seen the vessels and get them to run them a few days after they’ve been introduced to them.”

The general secretary of the RMT was speaking ahead of a parliamentary debate about P&O Ferries’ decision on Thursday to make 800 crew redundant and swap them for cheaper agency staff.

Mr Lynch said: “We’ve got to see a situation where our people are put back on board those ferries so they can run them safely, and that this injustice is put right.

“If they’re not prepared to maintain standards and employ British workers on British ferries, then something’s got to be done.

“We think that they are importing Indian workers, Filipinos and Ukrainians at the moment to work on these vessels. That cannot be acceptable.

“We cannot dismiss our people to ensure that other people are brought in on a cut-price rate. So we need a direct intervention from this government to show that they want to maintain a level playing field and support UK jobs.”

P&O Ferries has rejected the claims about diminished safety.

A spokesperson said: “Safety is the utmost priority for P&O Ferries and our crewing management partners. They have recruited high-quality experienced seafarers, who will now familiarise themselves with the ships, going through all mandatory training requirements set out by our regulators.

“Safety is paramount in our new crewing management model, which is used by many of our competitors and has been proven to be the most successful model in this industry and the competitive baseline.

“We will not be reducing crewing numbers. We don’t have a business if we don’t have a safe business.”

On Friday a P&O Ferries spokesperson said: “We know that for our staff this redundancy came without warning or prior consultation, and we fully understand that this has caused distress for them and their families.

“We took this difficult decision as a last resort and only after full consideration of all other options but, ultimately, we concluded that the business wouldn’t survive without fundamentally changed crewing arrangements, which in turn would inevitably result in redundancies.

“We also took the view, in good faith, that reaching agreement on the way forward would be impossible and against this background, that the process itself would be highly disruptive, not just for the business but for UK trade and tourism.

“The changes we’ve made bring us into line with standard industry practice.”

At the weekend the RMT claimed that the replacement crew “will be paid poverty wages below the national minimum wage”.

The union said shipping companies registered in other countries and operating routes from UK ports to Europe can pay below the minimum wage.

Mr Lynch said: “We need new employment legislation to protect UK seafarers. The reason P&O have not been able to sack seafarers on Dutch and French contracts is because they have far stronger national employment laws.”

The RMT campaigned vigorously for the UK to leave the European Union in the 2016 referendum, saying “The EU has promoted undercutting.”