Ferry jobs ‘race to bottom’ fears
Rival threat to do same as P&O
THE P&O scandal puts hundreds more jobs at risk and means a “race to the bottom” among ferry operators, warn unions.
A rival firm is already threatening to sack seafarers and use cheaper agency workers unless Boris Johnson blocks P&O Ferries’ sacking of 800 staff.
DFDS says it cannot compete if P&O Ferries’ decision to pay wages of £5.50 an hour is not overturned.
In a letter to Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, it called for a “level playing field” on pay to avoid sacking UK staff and hiring cheaper foreign workers.
Danish DFDS employs 2,700 crew members, lorry drivers and office staff in the UK, operating four cross-channel routes,
It sails from three English ports – Dover, Newhaven and Newcastle – to Amsterdam, Calais, Dunkirk and Dieppe.
A spokesman said: “DFDS has written to the Secretary of State asking for a meeting to discuss how a level playing field on the Channel can be achieved for an operator like DFDS whose crewing model employs British seafarers directly.”
He declined to say what it means for staff or reveal the letter’s content.
Mick Lynch, leader of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union, said: “P&O have kicked off a race to the bottom on our ships, and dithering by government over P&O’S illegal act is threatening more job cuts at competitors and catastrophe for UK seafarers.
“We want guarantees that the Government is taking steps to keep members’ jobs, collective bargaining and UK registration on the DFDS fleet.”
Last week the Prime Minister condemned the P&O sackings as illegal but there are doubts over the Government’s powers to prevent the firm going ahead because workers are registered abroad.
The PM and Mr Shapps have called on boss Peter Hebblethwaite to quit after he admitted breaking the law and said he would do so again, claiming he had no alternative to keep the firm afloat.
Between them DFDS and P&O carried almost 10 million passengers a year to Calais before the pandemic.
An industry insider said one option being considered by DFDS would be to scrap the short-haul model of employment used on Channel crossings for a less stringent international arrangement where agency staff are the norm.
Shadow Transport Secretary Louise Haigh said: “P&O has produced a blueprint for rogue employers the world over to slash wages and the Tories have done absolutely nothing to stop them.”
The development came as coastguard bosses held the P&O Ferries ship European Causeway in Larne, Northern Ireland, as “unfit to sail” because of crew and documentation problems.
The Department for Transport declined to comment.
P&O have kicked off a race to the bottom on
our ships