‘Revulsion’ over P&O’s action – Tory chairman

NEW crews being drafted in to run P&O ferries are being offered wages as low as £2.60 an hour, according to reports.

The agency staff were brought in after the ferry company suddenly axed 800 employees last week. The agency that will be responsible for the new P&O Ferries crews was set up only four weeks ago, according to Mailonline.

One 59-year-old man, who worked with the company for 23 years, described the mass sackings as “money-grabbing and a total betrayal”.

He told MailOnline that cheaper agency workers, understood to be from Eastern Europe, were being brought in on wages of £2 to £3 per hour to replace British sailors whose hourly rates can eclipse £28.

Tory chairman Oliver Dowden has said P&O Ferries and its parent company DP World should be “in no doubt” that the UK Government is considering its links with them following the action.

The government’s contracts with the firms are being reviewed and Mr Dowden said there was “revulsion” about the handling of the process: “I think they should be in no doubt that the government is considering very closely its relationship with them,” he said.

He told Times Radio the government was trying to establish whether the mass dismissal was legal.

Mr Dowden said: “All of us feel, frankly, a revulsion at the kind of sharp practices from P&O. There has been a complete lack of engagement, a lack of prior notice or indeed any empathy whatsoever for the workers.”

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps and Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng wrote to P&O’s chief executive on Friday to express their “disappointment and anger”.

Mr Shapps said he had instructed the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) to carry out inspections of all P&O vessels before they return to sea to check the new crews the company has “rushed through” are safe.

Demonstrations were held at ports in London, Liverpool, Larne, Hull and Dover on Friday.