From a full British & Dutch crew to Filipino and now trying to cut staff costs again.
What next Russian Borscht?
bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-15727637
I know because I know some of them
They dont have full British crew now and have not for many years. This measure is because recently it became law that a British flagged vessel had to pay the crew British wages. Until then it was legal to pay a sailor a wage in relation to his home country, hence why British crews were all replaced with Poles, Russians, Indians and especially Filipino’s etc. Now a Filipino working for P&O on a British flagged ship will have to be paid at least the minimum wage for a British seaman. So rather than paying them more, or infact employing a British seaman, they will flag out to the Bahamas and continue business as usual.
Even back in the mid 90s when the Norbay was running the freight service from Hull to Rotterdam a good percentage of the crew were Filipino. P&O were amongst the first pioneers of British shipping back in the mid 60s to replace British crews with cheap labour. A friend of mine’s dad used to work on P&O liners in the 60s and recalls the day on arrival at Tilbury dock from Australia that the entire catering department was signed off and a new set from Goa were signed on.
I spent three and a half years at sea myself but apart from one ship, all of my ships were German flagged becaus no British company would employ a British citizen. I still have a large collection of letters at home from shipping companies thanking me for my application “but we regret to inform you that company policy is that only employ Polish seafarers on our vessels”.
Whats happening in European transport now is only whats been going on with shipping for the past 30 or 40 years.
As has just been said, P&O have filipino crews for many years now on Hull-Rotterdam and they used to have some on Portsmouth-Le Havre also