ONLY THE FITTEST SURVIVE
Jobs bloodbath P&O’S millionaire boss warned…
EXCLUSIVE John Siddle, Stephen Hayward and Phil Cardy
THE millionaire boss of P&O Ferries insisted “only the fittest survive” before cruelly axing 800 workers.
Chief executive Peter Hebblethwaite previously told a trade mag the operator was more efficient and he aimed to make it bigger.
But last night it was battling a growing public backlash over Thursday’s jobs bloodbath, with travellers and holiday firms pledging a boycott.
A union is urging the Government to revoke P&O Ferries’ licences in British waters as the operator resumed services on its Liverpool to Dublin route.
The 800 were fired in ports across the UK, many by pre-recorded messages, and replaced by cheaper agency staff.
Labour has called an emergency Commons debate tomorrow, demanding P&O reinstate the sacked workers and all government contracts with owners DP World are suspended.
In May, Mr Hebblethwaite, 51, explaining P&O’S earlier decision to axe 1,100 jobs due to Covid, told Cruise and Ferry magazine: “Only the fittest survive and we had to get fitter.”
He insisted: “My priority is still to grow our business through our people and our customers, and we must be competitive. We’re now a much more efficient business and that will benefit us in the future.”
Drastic
Mr Hebblethwaite, among directors paid £2.6million in 2019, lives in a Cotswolds farmhouse with a heated swimming pool and stables.
Thursday’s message claimed drastic cuts were needed after P&O lost £100m over two years. Yet Dubai-based DP World, ultimately controlled by the Gulf state government, generated record revenues of more than £8.2billion last year.
Now P&O faces being shunned by the public over its treatment of staff – who fear their redundancy payouts could be hit if they dare speak out. West Midlands-based Sutton Travel has stopped taking bookings. It tweeted: “A disgraceful way to treat loyal and hardworking staff, especially on the back of two years of uncertainty for P&O employees.”a customer who cancelled a trip said: “I’m not spending my hard earned money on a company that behaves like that.”
In Hull, sailors were fearful for the future and passenger safety.
An able seaman, 60, a P&O employee for 45 years, said: “It is staggering that not one of the new crew know the ship, its layout, its lifeboats. God forbid something happens, they’d be clueless.”
P&O said the sackings were “necessary” to protect the remaining 2,200 staff and the business would not survive “without fundamentally changed crewing arrangements”.
RMT union chief Mick Lynch stormed: “No worker in this country is safe from being kicked from pillar to post in this race to the bottom if we don’t stand up and fight.”