The sacking by P&O ferries of all its British seafarers is a serious attack on the whole trade union movement and poses a serious threat to all workers’ conditions and living standards. This disgraceful sacking has sent shock waves around the labour movement and if it is not beaten back, it will be followed by similar moves by a whole range of employers.
The 800 P&O workers were fired by a pre-recorded video message, after all the company’s ferries had been ordered back to port, including the chilling message “this is your last day of employment”. The unceremonious sacking was even worse than the usual fire and rehire, being followed immediately by their replacement with agency workers on worse pay and conditions. Because the ferries are plying international waters, they are not subject to national or EU workers’ rights, and the new crews may earn as little as £2.60 an hour.
Not only had P&O already signed up agency workers, but many of them were waiting on buses to take over the ferries from their former crews. Unsurprisingly, many P&O workers were so outraged by this treatment that they initially refused to leave the ferries, despite threats that “handcuff-trained” security staff might be used to clear the ships.
Many of the workers sacked have worked in the industry for years, in some cases for decades. Most of them worked during the pandemic and feel that they have now just been cast aside. It also raises serious safety concerns for the operation of the ferries, as one Navigation Officer who lost his job told the Belfast Telegraph (March 18).
“While all the new crew on board now are certified”, he said, “normal procedure is that when there’s any change on a ship, there’s a familiarisation period to go through. With someone who is familiar, they’re able to show people around. This time there’s been no official handover.”
Workers cannot rely on anything Tory ministers might do
The government has apparently directed the coast guard service to check the ferries and seek assurances as to the quality of the new crews, but as with other issues, we should expect nothing from this gesture.
It has been reported that all P&O Ferries contracts with the government are to be “reviewed”. The company has had nearly £40m in public contracts in the last few years and one, for freight between Tilbury and Zeebrugge for nine months, was worth over £10m.
There has been such a public outcry at the manner of the P&O sackings that even Tory ministers have been forced to respond to it. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, has expressed his “deep concern” and has apparently questioned whether the sackings were “legal” or broke employment laws as they apply to redundancies. Their main concern seems to be the undue haste and the ‘insensitivity’ of P&O rather than the sackings themselves, as if the sackings were acceptable, if only 30 days’ notice had been given.
It has now been revealed that P&O ferries are being investigated by the Pensions Regulator amid concerns that they have failed to pay a £146m deficit. The Merchant Navy Ratings Pension Fund has a total deficit of £1.25bn and P&O’s shortfall, it has been suggested is secured against two of the companies’ older ferries, which are probably not worth that amount anyway.
But despite the crocodile tears of Tory ministers, the labour movement cannot rely on anything they do. Ever since the election, they have been posturing as the ‘party of the workers’ and if they do anything at all, it will only be as a result of the pressure of the labour movement and the fear of voters’ reactions. The government, in any case, was tipped off the day before by P&O what was going to happen and they chose to do nothing.
‘Freeports’ are an encouragement to cut corners and wages
We have heard all of this bluster before, long before Margaret Thatcher’s day. It was nearly fifty years ago that Tory Prime Minister Ted Heath referred to the ‘excesses’ of the Lonrho company as “the unacceptable face of capitalism”. Similar weasel words have been said about other scandals, most recently the role of Sir Phillip Green in the collapse of BHS. What these ‘scandals’ all have in common is that, despite Tory rhetoric about how bad they are, they have led to no substantial change to the behaviour of the companies involved, and no jobs were saved.
In fact, apart from the hot air, the sum total of Tory opposition to the P&O sacking so far has been for two government ministers to write separate letters to the wrong person – the former chairman of P&O – to express their concern. Just as Boris Johnson has weathered the storm over his Covid lock-down parties, the Tories will want to ride this storm out, doing as little as possible besides grandstanding.
P&O are owned by DP World, a large multi-national company owned by the sovereign wealth fund of the state of Dubai, where trade unions are banned, and workers’ rights are severely restricted. DP World’s, most recent earnings were $3.8bn. They also own the UK’s second and third biggest shipping terminals, Southampton and London Gateway, handling more than half of our intercontinental container traffic, including food, raw materials and imports from Asia.
Both of these ports are earmarked for ‘freeport’ status by the Tories, which means they will get tax breaks and government handouts, and as freeports they will be encouraged to cut corners in workers’ pay and conditions. That is the whole point of freeports, so the Tories will under no circumstances want to fall out with a company like DP World. It was hardly surprising that at the workers’ rally in Dover that Tory MP for the town, Natalie Elphicke, was heckled, because she had supported fire and rehire in the Commons.
As the chief executive of one logistics company told the Financial Times (March 18), the Government “wouldn’t have anything to gain by slapping down DP World, which is a massive infrastructure provider to the UK,” adding that the government “will be all bluster…”
The labour movement must conduct its own fight, on its own terms
P&O operate ferry services from mainland Britain to Ireland, France and the Netherlands and as well as ships crews they employ workers portside. All of these workers will now be fearing for their jobs and conditions, because if P&O are allowed to get away with these sackings, it will be the dockers in Southampton and London next.
These sackings are a challenge to the whole trade union movement, and they are a test of what the leaders of the unions are prepared to do. Companies up and down the country will be watching carefully to see if P&O can get away with these disgraceful sackings and if they do, then no workers jobs will be safe anywhere. The game of pitting UK workers against cheaper foreign labour is one the employers will play again, and the trade union movement must answer this with workers’ solidarity.
If P&O are allowed to get away with these brutal sackings, then other P&O workers will follow and many others in different parts of industry and transportation. Dockers in Southampton and London, in DP World companies, might be next. Around the country, scab agencies will be gathering cheap labour and have them sitting in buses waiting outside workplaces.
The labour movement cannot rely on appeals to ‘law’, ‘morality’ and definitely not to Tory ministers. It has to conduct its own fight for the P&O jobs, and on its own terms. Rallies have already been held in in Dover, Hull and Liverpool and there will undoubtedly be a lot more to come. The main union involved, the National Union of Rail Maritime and Transport Workers, RMT, should be given the full backing of the labour and trade union movement.
Only the most militant and resolute action will save jobs
Only the most militant and resolute action by the trade union movement has any chance of saving P&O jobs. All actions of the RMT, including if necessary, occupying ships and ports, should be supported by the full weight of the trade union movement, financially and in terms of industrial action. There needs to be at the very least a complete blockade and boycott of all P&O services.
It is notable that French employees are unaffected by the P&O dismissals. This is not only because French workers are protected by the Code Du Travail, a raft of legal safeguards unavailable to British workers, but because of the militancy of French workers. P&O well know that had they sacked French workers in this manner, every Channel port would have been blockaded to them. That speaks volumes about the British TUC who up to now have unfortunately restricted their ‘protests’ largely to making plaintive appeals to the Tory government.
This issue will be a test for the Labour leadership too. Keir Starmer and his team have repeated ad nauseam that Labour is ‘under new management’, as if it weren’t obvious to every Labour member suffering the indignity of a stifling atmosphere of bureaucracy and censorship. But now the Starmer team has to come up with the goods. What will be their answer? What measures will they demand of the government? Will they support militant actions by workers to defend their jobs and to boycott P&O in the meantime?
To their disgrace, the Labour leadership haven’t even made a statement against fire and rehire, even though it is a policy passed by Labour conference. If the Labour leadership had an ounce of the fighting spirit of the founders of the party, they would be demanding that P&O should be nationalised, and the ferries confiscated, with minimal compensation.
Public opinion would be perfectly at ease with shareholder compensation being the same as the redundancy payment offered to ferry crews. Through taxpayer-funded government aid and public contracts, as well by dividends already paid, P&O shareholders have had their cut and deserve nothing more.
In reality, a rational and planned transport sector, one that functioned in the interests of the whole population, could only be based on one that involves the public ownership of the whole ferry sector, as well as ports and associated facilities. As long as these are operated for the enrichment of a tiny minority of people, including wealthy overseas owners, they will not serve the interests of the population as a whole.
P&O should be a watershed for the whole labour and trade union movement, a signal that the onslaught on living standards ends now. If there has ever been a time for a militant fightback, in the political and industrial spheres, it is now.
Note: this editorial is available in PDF format, ready to be printed as a two-sided leaflet. To get the PDF, e-mail the editor at editor@left-horizons.co.uk
