P&O Ferries confirms that it does not intend to reintegrate dismissal seamen



Resuming the 800 seafarers fired in trunk by P&O Ferries? Not even talking about it, is the response from the CEO of the shipping company, Peter Hebblethwaite, to this request, which was placed on Wednesday in the form of an intimation by London's transport minister, Grant Shapps, as a replica of the Government at the decision of the maritime carrier, which is part of Dubai's DP World Group, to leave at home on March 17, from one hour to another, its own personnel on board to replace it with cheaper foreign workers ( of the 17 and 28 March 2022).

In a letter sent to the minister on Thursday, Hebblethwaite reiterated that the company had examined all alternative options to conclude that it had no choice but to dismiss the seafarers. "If we didn't do that, we would have risked the collapse of the entire company with the loss of 3,000 jobs," P&O Chief Executive Ferries said. Therefore, unfortunately, we have had no choice but to dismiss 786 of our colleagues without following the correct procedures. " Hebblethwaite confirmed again that the company had failed to comply with labour law rules, but added, however, what compensation was deemed fair by the company for this illegal act, which " for this reason we are compensating for appropriately and quickly the staff that have left our jobs. "

In the letter, Hebblethwaite told the minister that he did not understand the problem : "You have asked me to cancel our decision and to give back to all 800 workers their work," he said. Unfortunately this underestimates the fundamental and current issues of the situation. First of all, the circumstances that led P&O Ferries to take on this first decision continue to exist. Meeting your request would cause the company's deliberate collapse, resulting in the irredeemable loss of an additional 2,200 jobs, " he said. I can't imagine-it's the further arrows of Hebblethwaite to the minister-that you intend to force an employer to provoke their own ruin, affecting not hundreds but thousands of families. Secondly-he continued by implicitly arguing that the decision did not affect seafarers as serious as supported by the government-of the 786 members of the dismissal crews, more than 765 have made it known to accept the offer countervailing. Of these, currently over 500 have accepted and signed transactive agreements, including 67 officers who have accepted an offer to work with the new company that manages the crews or are about to do so. "What is done is done"-of legally binding agreements and the members of the crews who have concluded them expect, rightly, that we abide by the terms of the agreement. As a result, we cannot consent to a change in the May 31 deadline of our compensating offer to seafarers. "

Before continuing with the rest of the content of Hebblethwaite's letter, one cannot fail to detect how much disconcerts his claims, in particular the latest, put in black on white from the top executive of an important society and rioting even to a minister and his government. The chief executive of P&O Ferries says the dismissed seafarers demand in practice that the terms of the new agreement to which they have been substantially forced to underperform instead of, as required by the government, are in place, the chief executive said. work under previous conditions. Previous conditions that, by the same admission as P&O Ferries that have repeatedly confirmed it in the past few days, were better than those offered by the company after their dismissal.

Specifying that with the new conditions proposed to crews has been adopted a model that is applied to 80% of the entire maritime sector and is usually used by the competing companies of P&O Ferries, Hebblethwaite specified that " The adoption of a flexible model for crews will enable us to meet the demands of our customers while remaining commercially competitive. It is important to stress that most of the savings expected will result from the elimination of labour overlaps and the benefits of greater flexibility rather than wage reduction. It is necessary to point out that if the national minimum wage is also applicable, it would not change the need to adopt a different model for crews. According to this model the crews are paid for the actual working time, plus the holidays, while with the model prior to the crews was given the full pay to work 24 weeks per year. This model is unsustainable in the current operating environment that is very competitive. "

"I am fully aware of the cost in terms of reputation for the brand," Shapps Chief Executive Officer Shapps told a news outlet in Hebblethwaite. P&O Ferries and for me personally, "he replied that" nonetheless I am obliged to fulfen my duties for this historic company, saving the jobs of the 2,200 precious employees who continue to work for P&O Ferries by providing to the effective operation of the trade routes on which this country depends. "I will continue, therefore, to do my best to ensure that the activity of this company is sustainable in the future," he said.

It is yet to be known whether the tone and content of the letter have been welcome or not to Minister Shapps, although it is easy to intuit the reaction. Of course they have not been appreciated by the unions. " The latest letter from Peter Hebblethwaite-infuriated Mick Lynch, secretary general of the RMT trade union-represents a direct challenge to the legal framework and the authority of the government in Britain. The diabolical arrogance demonstrated by P&O Ferries is equivalent to motorway banditry and must be countered. This absolute putreduced shows that the government has to step in, take over P&O's management and reinstate all 800 employees fired without any loss of salary. "

Meanwhile, while at a hearing in the Scottish Parliament, Peter Hebblethwaite was at the centre of the same criticism from the UK government and was branded as "bankruptcy chief executive" by the MP. Labour Monica Lennon, the Maritime & Coastguard Agency (MCA) stopped a second ship from P&O Ferries in Dover, the Pride of Kent , after an inspection that has ascertained deficiencies in the familiarization of the crew with the ship and with the safety procedures.