As a direct result of Brexit DP World/ P&O changed the registry of 6 of its GB registered ships from the UK to Cyprus to take advantage of tax and uhm being in the EU.
it’s got plenty to do with Brexit. Why do you think this action only affects those on U.K. contracts and not those on french or Dutch contracts
Do we have to repeat the point that Irish Ferries did this years ago?
the EU decided everything
No one has said this. Stop making stuff up.
It has been pointed out that the claims made by the RMT as regards the benefits of leaving the EU for ferry staff have not come to pass.
The negative effects of Brexit on the ferry business that P&O depends on have been explained in boring detail by many posters.
That is all.
No one in this thread has said that the EU decide everything, have they. Stop setting up your own arguments.
Yeah plenty of people seem to think that the EU has far more influence than it really has. I know that 'stop making stuff up' is a common line of attack for you but perhaps you need to be more honest about the truth.
Please point out my dishonesty in this thread. Thank you.
Yeah plenty of people seem to think that the EU has far more influence than it really has.
I don't recall reading that on the side of a bus
The opposition parties really should be campaigning on this and making P&O’s action, which has received universal condemnation and united people in a way that very few industrial disputes (if any) do, a watershed moment.
Let's try and get some agreement going in this thread...
https://twitter.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1505464817175388161?s=20&t=DjQa9X4RV7jpX1j3GOoZag
https://twitter.com/LouHaigh/status/1505872256974696454?s=20&t=3V7u4hlrUx9Bo-7-BmA7mw
https://twitter.com/DavidLammy/status/1505884775336267777?s=20&t=58E2daS1NOXFItgohL61jw
How on earth can a company get away with paying people £1.80 and hour? 😳
It's not just a question of what the legal minimum requirement is, it's paying somebody that amount without wondering how they were meant to actually live/exist on that.
I wonder how many multiples of that figure the people taking the decision to sack all the staff are earning?
How on earth can a company get away with paying people £1.80 and hour?
Everybody wants to pay as little as possible for their shit. The market will find a way for that to happen
According a Johnson spokesman employers would simply ignore the law so there is no point passing legislation :
A spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: "Using threats of firing and rehiring is completely unacceptable as a negotiating tactic. We expect companies to treat their employees fairly.
"However, there is insufficient evidence to show legislation will stop the practice or will be effective."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58997916
I am actually.at a joint Nautilus/RMT rally outside parliament right now and Brian Gardiner has just spoken, he was unsurprisingly very angry, interestingly the employment lawyer who drew up the private member's bill is also here.
Angela Raynor has also spoken, I was fairly impressed, as has the TUC general secretary, and a spokeswoman for the European Transport Union Federation.
The RMT general secretary has just made the point that the RMT has no problem with the nationality of the crews as long as they receive the pay and conditions that the RMT has negotiatated. He alleged that P&O agency's original plan was to replace the crews with Russian officers and Ukrainian crews but that for obvious reasons that plan went tits up, no idea how true it is.
The rally is really for the media, there seems plenty here including foreign media.
Barry Gardiner?
MPs and Union staff have made it clear the government have tools beyond just legislation, Johnson is just pretending not to understand what is being called for, and what he and his government can do. Legislation is only part of the minimum response expected of him (and not just by engaged opposition MPs and Union spokespeople, but by plenty of the public as well, I would hope... if the media cover it well). He can't just shrug this off (well, experience suggests that he can, what I mean is that it is a deceit to suggest that this is all beyond his power to act). Start with the freeports, and who the government will or won't partner with there, and the responsibility as regards workers pay and protections for staff connected with freeports as well as ferry/transport links.
£1.80 an hour is an absolute fortune if you're Filipino, have no accomodation or indeed living costs while onboard and only have to travel home once a year. Ask DFDS' crew: we've had numerous conversations with them on quiet crossings. The way they dote on any kids they meet breaks my heart - their own kids are at home with grandparents while both parents are away earning a living at sea.
P&O have always had a quotient of Filipino cabin service staff - housemaids, cleaning staff and waitresses. What I assume they're doing now is expanding that to include the stevedores, deckhands, chefs and possibly junior officers.
How on earth can a company get away with paying people £1.80 and hour? 😳
It’s not just a question of what the legal minimum requirement is, it’s paying somebody that amount without wondering how they were meant to actually live/exist on that.
I wonder how many multiples of that figure the people taking the decision to sack all the staff are earning?
Ah, damn, hot_fiat got there first. All the Filipino's I sailed with would do 6 month trips, home for one or two then back to sea. That earned them a house in Manilla, one in the country and all the wives, mistresses and girlfriends they could keep up with. Not the life for me but they worked hard for it.
Barry Gardiner?
Yes sorry I meant Barry.
Anything else to report from the rally?
Barry Gardiner is another of the moronic lexiters who probably though brexit would stop this sort of thing happening. He's not the brightest bulb in the box.
He's actually a very smart cookie... but he did get completely tied up in knots between 2016 and 2019 when it comes to Brexit... like the whole of the Labour front bench. He was often sent out to do the media rounds to justify a position he'd been proposing the opposite of the same week! It's ruined his chance for higher politics, but he's still a hardworking MP. He's no moron. I often disagreed with him, and got exasperated with whatever he was trying to convince his interviewers of on the evening current affairs programmes... but then, seemingly, so did he the next time he appeared on them.
Labour can demand whatever they like but will have more luck campaigning for the tide not to come in.
The reality of this very distressing dispute based on the press reports seems to be:
- The trading subsidiary has made 3 years of (substantial) losses - reportedly now running at c£1m a day due to the latest change in fuel costs
- Irish Ferries can undercut P&O's operating costs by 25-35% because they have used low paid maritime contracts since 2005
- The rate of P&O's losses will accelerate further as Irish Ferries increase their number of boats / compete on more like for like routes
- Irish Ferries sacked their own workers and rehired maritime workers whilst their trading company was registered in an EU member state AND that member state had a minimum wage
- Current P&O employment contracts are under Jersey employment law so there's no scope for individual claims under UK employment law / tribunals
- This is a genuine redundancy. The work will not be done by new employees, it will be delivered as a service from a company headquartered in Switzerland and fulfilled by international workers on maritime contracts entered into outside UK law
- P&O have offered up to 9 months salary based on length of service - substantially above the legal minimum
- Based on the above it would seem to be a legal yet risible change and P&O will pay the redundant workers a lot more than they legally have to.
Demanding that P&O rehire the workers on unaffordable contracts and continue to lose money because their costs are significantly higher than one of their main competitors will just result in the company being forced into bankruptcy.
Labour either know this and are just going through the motions for political point scoring or they don't know it in which case they are wasting everyones time and giving false hope to the workers.
hot_fiat - Aren't a lot of the Pride of Rotterdam staff Filipino? In addition to the cabin crew, I seem I remember quite a few on the car deck etc (they also had a fleet of random bikes and bsos stashed at the far end of the car deck - presumably to occasionally escape the ship when in port).
Barry Gardiner is another of the moronic lexiters who probably though brexit would stop this sort of thing happening.
Gardiner is fairly right-wing and voted to remain in the EU. I am assuming that your remark is based on the fact that he was opposed to Labour's disastrous 'second referendum' policy which handed Johnson such a huge majority, and presumably you supported.
Gardiner is smart enough to know that the UK'S current employment laws have nothing to do with the EU.
Labour either know this and are just going through the motions for political point scoring or they don’t know it in which case they are wasting everyones time and giving false hope to the workers.
To demand legislation to provide greater employment protection is a perfectly reasonable position to take.
The fact that there is little or no chance of it happening with a Tory government is all the more reason why Labour should be demanding it.
There will be an election in 2 years time and voters need to understand that the Tories have zero interest in social and economic justice. They need to understand that there is an alternative. They have to be offered hope. There is nothing false in that and it's hardly a waste of time.
I don't however feel that it is an issue solely for Labour which is why I said that it is an issue for "opposition parties" ...... SNP, Greens, PC, LibDem, etc. It is an issue which the Tories need to understand will cost them votes, and not least in the "red wall" seats.
Let’s drop all the almost reflex reactions as regards Breixt, and get back to today’s rally… any other speakers Ernie? Anything new said? Anyone follow parliament today, did Labour get a vote on this today?
@mick_r yes I think they were. Not the officers but general workers & deckhands.
<Uncomfortable opinion sigh> Ok, from a consumer perspective this isn’t as bad as it seems. We get to keep a number of sea routes that would probably just close. The other thing is, well… the British ships were always a bit down at heel when compared to the Dutch ones. A bit prematurely tired, the cabins not quite as clean, the food not quite as good. And that goes back a long way. I remember being on Norland after she got back from the falklands. You could tell she’d been used as a POW ship. Many years later after she’d been lengthened and heavily refurbished, you could still tell. Norstar wasn’t like that.
When Norland struck the pier on the way out of Europort one night, very nearly capsized and it took two months to get my dad’s car back, we weren’t really that surprised.
Remember Roy Kinnear’s character from Juggernaut? That.
</Uncomfortable opinion sigh>
Based on the above it would seem to be a legal yet risible change and P&O will pay the redundant workers a lot more than they legally have to.
If that's the case then they would have been much better off consulting about it well in advance and doing it with the minimum of fuss. The way they've done it has attracted hugely bad PR, which may be significant in terms of lost passenger custom (freight customers will probably go with the cheapest).
They’ve done it so as to avoid the risk any strike action, or similar. Remove/replace staff immediately to ensure routes keep running. It stinks, but they can afford any fallout. They know that once this is old news, the UK government will be working with them again on freeports, and won’t do anything to interrupt their running of ferries.
any other speakers Ernie? Anything new said?
I didn't really hear anything new said, it was clearly designed for the media. A large amount of big Labour and trade union names. Plenty of northern/Scouse types including the general secretary of Nautilus whose speech was the only one which made me feel a bit emotional. He was devastated, 200 of his members have been sacked and it's not a trade union which is used to taking militant action. I think he was moved by the working-class solidarity which was fairly new territory for them.
The RMT speakers and officials all looked and spoke like Bob Crow - big baldheaded thuggish looking geezers who spoke with eloquence and passion in South London accents. It was really weird, it's as if the RMT have a laboratory somewhere producing clones of Bob Crow. I found it warmly reassuring.
The only speaker I didn't hear was Jeremy Corbyn as he was the last speaker and I didn't hang around to listen to him.
It wasn't only lefties there, I noticed Geraint Davies a blairite MP who I personally know from the days that he was a Croydon MP was milling around.
The reporter of the TV crew next to me was looking into the camera and speaking in a language which I didn't really recognise, so it was obviously getting coverage beyond the UK.
It is the smallest rally I have ever seen with such big names btw. Although there really wasn't any room for many more.
I see this problem re-occurring when looking at business from a purely mathematical viewpoint.
Sack staff --> Get cheaper ones --> raise living standards --> staff demand higher wages --> sack staff
It is the smallest rally I have ever seen with such big names btw.
Let’s see what the UK TV news teams make of it this evening.
As a direct result of Brexit DP World/ P&O changed the registry of 6 of its GB registered ships from the UK to Cyprus to take advantage of tax and uhm being in the EU.
I'd take exception to the "direct result of Brexit" bit. Irish Continental Group, parent of Irish Ferries, (HQ Dublin, EU) have registered their fleet in Cyprus (also EU) and the Bahamas (not EU, but on the EU tax grey list)
Cyprus has the 11th largest fleet in the world and 3rd largest in Europe and offers employment and tax advantages. One of these is "The wages of officers and the crew are exempt from income tax" ( https://www.chambers.law/why-register-a-ship-in-cyprus/)
Read what the ITF (The International Transport Workers’ Federation) think about Flags of Convenience. You'll also find their thoughts on P&O on the same site
Sack staff –> Get cheaper ones –> raise living standards –> staff demand higher wages –> sack staff
You then move to the next low wage country and "hopefully" by the time you have cycled through them all another country has had a collapse and so is now the new low wage lot.
The RMT speakers and officials all looked and spoke like Bob Crow
The restless spectre of Bob Crow still keeps Tory ministers awake at night. I wish I'd had him conducting my wage negotiations 😂
The only speaker I didn’t hear was Jeremy Corbyn
You dodged a bullet there then eh, comrade? I'm guessing the word 'solidarity' may have featured once or twice 😉
Did the coverage of this actually make any news broadcasts Ernie? I didn't see anything.
There was some junior business minister on radio 4 this morning crying the usual crocodile tears, but when asked if the government intended to sanction P&O in any way regarding their contracts for freeports, then just started jabbering and stammering and flanneling.
I think we can take that as them having absolutely no intention of doing a damn thing about, while trying to pretend that they are. Same old, same old...
Ex colleague of mine spent many hours across the table from Bob Crow. His assessment was that for all the noise Bob was a pragmatist who cared deeply about getting the best outcome for his members, and that he was much more prepared to compromise to achieve this than his persona might suggest.
Well he had to be doing something right when you look at the outcomes he consistently achieved for his members. He always struck me as the absolute polar opposite of gobshites likes Len McClusky who don't actually seem to be too overly concerned with outcomes for their members, so long as they're kept in the lifestyle to which they've become accustomed, and get to go on telly regularly
I still don't understand how P&O managed to offshore RMT members contracts. That seems like something they'd be all over.
I didn’t see anything.
Nor me.
All the opposition parties look united on this in the commons…
https://votes.parliament.uk/Votes/Commons/Division/1253
Opposition Day: P&O Ferries and Employment Rights
Division 217: held on 21 March 2022 at 19:30
But as already pointed out if they keep them on and continue to lose money then eventually they fold.
Of course if we were in a position to even the playing field in terms of enhanced rights for all operators workers then this wouldn't be an issue but on the outside looking in we can either accept the race to the bottom or pretend it isn't happening until the company goes under.
If you can't run ferries without paying properly, and with workers rights in place, don't run ferries. Anything the government applies to P&O they should apply to anyone else wanting to run RoRo ferries to/from the UK.... and by "anything", I include measures such as partnering with the companies to run ports etc being tied to an agreement on pay, conditions and firing/rehiring/replacing policies. This is one of the (many) times when it is the government (perhaps with agreement/cooperation with other governments) that has to act to prevent the race to the bottom.
Did the coverage of this actually make any news broadcasts Ernie? I didn’t see anything.
I didn't either but apparently it did make the telly, a mate of mine says that he definitely saw Angela Rayner being interviewed at the rally last night, but couldn't remember which news broadcast it was as he claims that he watches news on the BBC ITV and C4 Newsnight.
It did make plenty of other news providers eg:
Btw John McDonnell definitely didn't speak at the rally although he was there, presumably the headline refers to an impromptu interview that he apparently gave to the PA news agency.
IMO the only thing that probably made the small short rally newsworthy at all was the fact the Labour Party deputy leader was there.
The one thing that all the speakers emphasised was the fact that P&O is very far from being skint. Greed is the motivation, not struggling in a difficult economic situation, whatever downturn might have occurred.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/po-claimed-10million-furlough-cash-26498688
DP World was criticised for paying a £270million dividend to shareholders at the end of April 2020 while P&O Ferries cut around 1,100 jobs as travelled collapsed following the pandemic.
All the opposition parties look united on this in the commons…
Yup. The vote was passed by 211 votes to none, with the government abstaining.
Even the Democratic Unionists voted in favour. One of the speakers yesterday mentioned that when even the DUP are onboard it shows just how widespread support for P&O employees is.
One of the speakers yesterday mentioned that when even the DUP are onboard it shows just how widespread support for P&O employees is.
P&O operate from Larne. Sammy Wilson is the MP. DUP had to support it.
"The one thing that all the speakers emphasised was the fact that P&O is very far from being skint. Greed is the motivation, not struggling in a difficult economic situation, whatever downturn might have occurred."
I'm sure the speakers did emphasise this but it doesn't make it true. Company Directors are legally required to operate trading companies as a going concern - if they have any doubts about their ability to do that they are required to register for insolvency.
"Greed" is not really provable in this situation because the facts suggest the opposite:
- P&O continued to operate the trading subsidiary and fund significant losses (now close to or exceeding £200m).
- The scope for running the business profitably is significantly impacted by an EU based competitor running with 25-35% lower operating costs - which are only possible because that competitor fired their own staff, rehired international crews and pays them through Cyprus in order to avoid tax
- P&O will pay substantially more in redundancy (tens of £000's to each crew member) than they are legally required to
"If you can’t run ferries without paying properly, and with workers rights in place, don’t run ferries"
Is a nice soundbite but how exactly can they run their business "paying properly" when international maritime employment contracts don't require their competitors to do so and when there are no legal restrictions available to bar those ferries from the same routes that P&O serve?
If you can’t run ferries without paying properly, and with workers rights in place, don’t run ferries. Anything the government applies to P&O they should apply to anyone else wanting to run RoRo ferries to/from the UK…. and by “anything”, I include measures such as partnering with the companies to run ports etc being tied to an agreement on pay, conditions and firing/rehiring/replacing policies. This is one of the (many) times when it is the government (perhaps with agreement/cooperation with other governments) that has to act to prevent the race to the bottom.
Laudable but if Irish Ferries can just undercut them and run straight to the continent where does that leave us?
Does that legislation just apply to RoRo ferries, all cargo vessels or all vessels full stop?
Does it apply to vessels landing in the UK, registered in the UK or anything flying a British flag?
Without wanting to come across as condescending it's, yet again, a simplistic solution to a very complex problem that raises far, far more questions than it answers.
As I said before, if we could influence the EU to strengthen maritime labour laws that would be great but we can't so here we are.
Without wanting to come across as condescending it’s, yet again, a simplistic solution to a very complex problem that raises far, far more questions than it answers.
Squirrelking - I agree - politicians offering "simple" (and unworkable) solutions to complex problems.
When they knowingly do this they are just taking voters for fools - putting more emphasis on promising platitudes and winning votes than providing an honest appraisal of the situation even if that means admitting that there's very little the law can do to restrict international employment norms. Leadership means being honest and not giving false hope - in this case to the hundreds of poor workers who've lost their jobs without any warning.
Yeah my heart bleeds for the poor Middle Eastern dictator who only 2 or 3 years bought the company and now needs to sort the consequences of buying a non thriving business.
Luckily weak, ineffective, or non existent, UK employment protection laws have come to his rescue. He can sack 800 individuals with little to worry about.
Imagine if they had all been protected by French employment legislation?
https://www.thelocal.fr/20220318/why-did-po-ferries-axe-uk-jobs-but-keep-its-french-workers/
"But as a cross-Channel company, P&O also has a significant contingent of French staff.
On Thursday French media reported staff representatives in France as saying they were not affected by the announcement."
UK employment protection laws......there to protect greedy billionaire dictators the world over.
And anyone who says that it shouldn't be so is giving false hopes and taking voters for fools.
Presumably as French politicians obviously have.
