whisperingsmith:
I would suggest taking a cautious approach with the Officers:-
At the height of the Carlist Wars Carlist Wars - Wikipedia the British lent their support to the legitimate heirs of Spain and Portugal and all three of P&O founders played their part, from gun running to chartering steamers.
As a consequence of this association and involvement P&O officers are the only Merchant Navy officers entitled to wear swords. 
wernt p&o involved in the fawklands carrying equipment and moving troops about
They will be looking to exploit lowly paid individuals from other countries hulldailymail.co.uk/news/hu … ur-3923380
shullbit:
RogerOut:
The is UK PLC… I’m afraid everything is business. To hell with its staff.
Fat cat shareholders on six figure salaries don’t give a stuff about its work force.
Bringing in cheaper foreign labour to do jobs for less.
Where have we heard that before eh ■■
There are already companies here offering jobs to Ukraine refugees.
So there must be a reason why British people aren’t doing these jobs… oh wait a minute…
They wont be able to pay the refugees less than the minimum wage
You can if you offer accommodation and deduct “rent” from the wage packet. Therefore a very cheap workforce living in a caravan.
Yorkielad:
the maoster:
I hope that the staff who refused to leave the ships scuttle them instead.
The government might scuttle em,sounds like it come out of the blue and nobody knew,government not impressed especially after they took all that furlough money,ministers were queuing up to slate P&O this afternoon on radio.
Yes In the guise of the MCA not granting the new crew and ferries updated safety certs etc to operate out of British ports
Cheap labour is all very well for some . Remember the Herald and the stories of how so many of us just missed it. We have that to look forward to again.
whisperingsmith:
This is serious Carryfast
Please STFU on things you know nothing about:-
You have never driven an HGV onto a ferry to mainland Europe (or probably never done a proper day’s work)
Many of us here have not only regularly used ferries with our wagons, BUT also are/were skilled Seafarers/Officers/Captains before driving wagons into Europe.
Ferries also take those other things called cars and I’ve used more ferries in that regard from the North Sea routes to Scandinavia before they were closed down and the Italian Islands and the Adriatic to Yugoslavia than you would even know existed.
So the government wants to force traffic onto the channel tunnel away from ferries and the M2/M25/M20 are now a basket case to use anyway.Much better to go to Portsmouth especially if anyone doesn’t want to use the tunnel which part have I got wrong.
whisperingsmith:
This is serious Carryfast
Please STFU on things you know nothing about:-
You have never driven an HGV onto a ferry to mainland Europe (or probably never done a proper day’s work)
Many of us here have not only regularly used ferries with our wagons, BUT also are/were skilled Seafarers/Officers/Captains before driving wagons into Europe.
Silly boy. Don’t you know that experienced people talking just bounces off cf and turns on the ‘even more BS’ tap.
peterm:
whisperingsmith:
This is serious Carryfast
Please STFU on things you know nothing about:-
You have never driven an HGV onto a ferry to mainland Europe (or probably never done a proper day’s work)
Many of us here have not only regularly used ferries with our wagons, BUT also are/were skilled Seafarers/Officers/Captains before driving wagons into Europe.
Silly boy. Don’t you know that experienced people talking just bounces off cf and turns on the ‘even more BS’ tap.
That ‘even more’ tap lacks an upper limit. I wonder if there is any subject your mate doesn’t consider himself an expert in.
They need boycotted and driven out of business to send out a clear message to other companies. This was a well planned out culling, they hired in security guards on mass to sort any unruly staff on the day. Not a word to government. Not a word to anyone, haulage companies, general public all had their day and travel plans heavily disrupted or cancelled altogether.
I feel for all the staff and their families, I hope to Christ none of them go back as “agency”. I know myself I’d rather go and sweep the streets rather than work for complete scum like that.
Is it actually legal to sack somebody with no real reason, let alone instantly with no notice period, (unless of course they are going into liquidation,.which afaik ain’t so.)
Are they not in a Union that would fight a legal case for them, or at least get them some sort of severance payment.
Just another example of how we have gone back 100 years in terms of worker’s basic rights and fairness to employees.
Brittany ferries received a 45 million euro bail out from the French government last year after covid restrictions meant they lost a 100 million.
I’m guessing P&0 suffered similar losses and Dubai isn’t going to bail P&O out.
If I was still working I’d be closing my account wirh them this morning.
robroy:
Is it actually legal to sack somebody with no real reason, let alone instantly with no notice period, (unless of course they are going into liquidation,.which afaik ain’t so.)
Are they not in a Union that would fight a legal case for them, or at least get them some sort of severance payment.
Just another example of how we have gone back 100 years in terms of worker’s basic rights and fairness to employees.
It was one of the few places left that was fully unionised, Irish Ferries did the exact same thing about 15 years ago so sadly nothing new except here they took on board the lessons of irish Ferries and prevented the crews from locking themsleves on board with the use of private security
Beth Hale, partner at employment law firm CM Murray, said P&O may have breached employment law.
She told the BBC’s Today programme that P&O should have consulted with unions and staff about potential dismissals and notified the government that hundreds of jobs were at risk.
“It’s potentially an enormous breach, but they purport to be paying their way out of it,” she added, by offering an ’ improved ’ severance package.
However, those who don’t accept will get only the legal minimum. Disgraceful behaviour.
P&O claimed almost £15m in government grants in 2020, which included furlough payments for its employees - and paid out £270m in dividends to shareholders - and paying out for the DP World Tour from the start of the 2022 season and feature a total prize fund in excess of $200m (£147m).
Maybe the ex transport minister Chris ’ Failing ’ Grayling who is employed by DP World used his experience to ’ help’ the workers. Now he has actual ships ■■■■■■■ doing nothing .
Star down under.:
peterm:
whisperingsmith:
This is serious Carryfast
Please STFU on things you know nothing about:-
You have never driven an HGV onto a ferry to mainland Europe (or probably never done a proper day’s work)
Many of us here have not only regularly used ferries with our wagons, BUT also are/were skilled Seafarers/Officers/Captains before driving wagons into Europe.
Silly boy. Don’t you know that experienced people talking just bounces off cf and turns on the ‘even more BS’ tap.
That ‘even more’ tap lacks an upper limit. I wonder if there is any subject your mate doesn’t consider himself an expert in.
When I go on ‘Who want’s to be a millionaire’’ I’ve got Carryfast down as my ‘‘Phone a friend’’. 
I’m no fool.
The way I see it is if it is a business you can fire and hire however you like.
What do people want? P&O ferries asked for government help to the tune of 150m back during the covid crisis and got refused. All they got was the furlough scheme.
If anything this just proves how stupid the furlough scheme was as it did not save these people from losing their jobs.
Also, I know people will claim that DP World can afford it as they gave their investors 200+m in dividends. Well, yea sure they could.
But if I was DP World and I saw that P & O ferries was not making money, I know what I would do. Be far smarter to either make it profitable or just cut your losses and fold up the company.
Its probably because DP World owns P&O ferries that it is still going.
There are legal procedures in place for any company planning on more than 20 redundancies, which it seems were not followed, so not only a PR disaster, but probably legal proceedings to come.
Time for the downtrodden workers to stand up and fight. Return to the day’s of the anarcho-syndicalist communes.
adam277:
The way I see it is if it is a business you can fire and hire however you like.
What do people want? P&O ferries asked for government help to the tune of 150m back during the covid crisis and got refused. All they got was the furlough scheme.
If anything this just proves how stupid the furlough scheme was as it did not save these people from losing their jobs.
Also, I know people will claim that DP World can afford it as they gave their investors 200+m in dividends. Well, yea sure they could.
But if I was DP World and I saw that P & O ferries was not making money, I know what I would do. Be far smarter to either make it profitable or just cut your losses and fold up the company.
Its probably because DP World owns P&O ferries that it is still going.
P&O were refused extra money because of the massive payout they chose to make to shareholders. The " huge losses" will have been the result of creative accounting with those losses having been shifted from other branches of the parent company onto the Ferries operation. The vessels must be seized and their licence to operate from British Ports revoked.
robroy:
Is it actually legal to sack somebody with no real reason, let alone instantly with no notice period, (unless of course they are going into liquidation,.which afaik ain’t so.)
Are they not in a Union that would fight a legal case for them, or at least get them some sort of severance payment.
Just another example of how we have gone back 100 years in terms of worker’s basic rights and fairness to employees.
Yes but the Conservatives are the party of the workers. And as they’re after oil from the Arab states its unlikely they’ll say much about it. They even essentially paid a ransom of £400m the other day to release two people, something that as a country we say we never do any doesn’t set a great precedent for any future UK detentions… Yes it was a debt but when it’s paid to release prisoners it becomes a ransom IMO.
On the original point… yes they can he sacked on the spot but they must be paid in lieu of notice. I heard on the radio earlier they’ll be getting 13 weeks pay plus two weeks pay for each year of service so there is a severance package there, it was just done in a very cold very calculated and extremely insensitive way.
But hey its allowed as the government have repeatedly failed to get involved and those so-called ‘fire and rehire’ procedures are still permitted
I loaded in Lanark yesterday morning . Trailer was to be taken to P+O in Cairnryan to be shipped home unacommpanied and I was supossed to lift another trailer for tipping in Washington yesterday evening. The news started coming in as I was clearing Glasgow but I was told to press on regardless - there was to be an announcement at dinnertime . Most haulage companies were expecting a takeover - a few hours delay while new uniforms and ticket designs got sorted and things would carry on as normal. On arrival at Cairnryan around dinnertime there was no accompannied traffic (lorry , trailer and driver )in the shipping lanes and very few trailers dropped for unacompanied shipping . No GMR’s could be generated either so the only option I had was to put the trailer into what we call storage ( P+O store the trailer until shipping is sorted out or we take it elsewhere ). On dropping my trailer and having a quick look round it became obvious the load for Washington hadn’t turned up . On further inqueries the trailer was still sitting in Larne unshipped , so I left the port and took myself down the road a few miles to wait for it to get sorted , layby found , kettle on - phone rings !!!
Had to go back hook back into the trailer and then wait around from 14.00 yeaterday to midnight to get the Stena boat home from Cairnryan to Belfast . Problem is Stena just cant cope with the amount of traffic thats appearing on probably the busiest two days of the week .
P+O runs from Cairnryan to Larne
Stena from Cairnryan to Belfast
In Cairnryan theres a port at each end of the village , Larne and Belfast are only 45 minutes apart so it dosen’t really matter which company you sail with when the both sets of boats are there and sailing . Some of the bigger hauliers have closer ties to P+O some closer ties to Stena .
As soon as it became clear what was going on yeaterday Stena closed all bookings and when they answered the phone we were told your on standby for a boat on Saturday morning
- basicly all P+O customers would be shipped after they looked after their own customers (understandable ).
I eventually managed to get a confirmed booking on the 23.30 last night which about 12 hours into this was already running 1 and a half hours late and another of ours got on as a standby , our third driver is still in Cairnryan and is now being told Saturday or Sunday just a standby booking nothing confirmed . Nowhere to park in the Port - turn up, try for a boat get turned away come back in 4 hours and try again - how do you keep cards right with that going on ?
Stena can’t cope and P+O is the only other option so as soon as this new crew gets their emergency training and the boat starts sailing again there will be plenty of customers boycotts just wont work and I think P+O know it .
25 years with a minimum of 2 crossings a week mostly with P+O I got to know a lot of the crew that were sacked yesterday . How they were treated was a cold calculated nasty action , many lived on board the boats for a couple of months at a time so not only did they loose their jobs they were pretty much evicted as well - told to empty their cabins put on a bus and dumped at the gate .
If P+O gets away with this , and it looks like nobody cares you can be sure that every ferry operator in UK waters will be sitting down today working out the savings if they pull the same stunt .
I’ve been told its a Columbian crew were are getting - must go and brush up on my language skills but the on board parties could be a bit wild - we will see how it goes .
looks like the Brexit fire of red tape has enabled P&O to do this to their British Staff.
Luckily for the French & other EU employees, they can’t be treated the same way as Brits as EU employment law still applies to P&O’s EU employees.