On Thursday morning, 800 people across the country were gathered to be told via video message that without warning it was to be their last day employed. Word seemed to be that they were to be replaced with more affordable for agency employees in order to "save the company" after it was bought by Dubai-based firm DP World in 2019 claiming P&O lost 200 million pounds over the pandemic despite the parent company reporting total profits of 683 million pounds just last year. It has also been reported by multiple news sources including Daily Mail that the "New Eastern European crew paid '£2-an-hour' on board 'don't have clearance to sail' after agency employing them was set up just one month ago by Swiss boss" which is a whole other layer to all of this. However no public statements have seemingly been made. Their Twitter accounts have only said the following on March 17th:
"Today we've announced changes to P&O Ferries. While we make these changes, many of our services will not be running over the next few days. Please visit our website for information on http://poferries.com"
That link only leads to their website home page where you can find all the ferries that are suspended. Their services have also been down for longer than they originally claimed, indicating some truth behind Daily Mail's previously mentioned story.
In response to this clear disgusting corporate greed, people from all over are hoarding into the ports of coastal cities such as Hull, Dover, and Liverpool in protest, gathering with flags, signs, and chants, letting the management and security teams who booted them off that they will not go quietly. Trade Unions such as Nautilus and RMT which represent the affected workers have accused the government of failing to protect said workers despite getting a 24 hour notice that the mass firings were coming. They are now asking Ministers to "intervene to reverse redundancies, remove any government support for DP World,-... and introduce new legislation to outlaw similar attacks in [the] future" Morningstaronline reported. It also called for a "widespread public and commercial boycott" of P&O Ferries and DP World.
The widespread opinion seems to be of the Tory party being to blame as well as the Labour party including Jeremy Corbyn and Keir Starmer move to introduce legislation to prevent these sort of events from happening in the future and many pointing to the Tories voting to allow "Fire and Rehire", the act of firing employees and telling them they can reapply on less favorable terms such as lower wages and less benefits than they'd just had, regardless of experience. Some of the released employees have reported having worked for P&O for up to 17 years.
Curiously, they chose to take these actions on the day before all individuals, vaccinated and non-vaccinated would be able to travel internationally once again as I reported in my last post. You can read more about that here:
Get in touch with your government representatives and let your voices be heard. There are much better platforms for tourists and travelers to take on their international journeys.
Dakota Morrill
Padoo Homes
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