TWO YEARS ON: P&O FERRIES FROM AN EX-AGENCY EMPLOYEE.

‘The actions of thugs’ quoted Shadow Transport Secretary Louise Haig in the aftermath of the 17 March 2022 forcible removal of P&O Ferries crews.

Made to feel like criminals, the seafarers had done nothing wrong. They were confronted by a team of private security guards from a company known as Interforce and given an hour to collect their belongings and leave the ship.

800 seafarers were sacked on that day, without negotiation or consultation – furthermore they were instructed that should they remain on board or talk to the media, then their qualification for severance money would be jeopardised.

The replacement crews were all non-UK domiciled and recruited on pay deals of £5.50 per hour.

A Twitter message sent to Interforce employees prior to the illegal sacking of 800 seafarers. Note the second to final paragraph in which guards are ordered to bring cuffs. It was denied that these were used during the P&O boarding, but nonetheless the intent factor of using cuffs to drag protesting seafarers down the ship’s ramp is obvious.

NOT P&O Dover – instead a picture from the 1984 miners’ strike illustrating more thuggish attacks on working people.

There are some parallels as Ms Lesley Bourne, a local lady and bystander, was attacked by a mounted policeman – thankfully the baton missed.

Perhaps it is as well that private security companies are forbidden to carry anything other than cuffs and utility belt – especially batons. And especially on ferries.

(acknowledgements to the Guardian newspaper 19/06/1984)

Anyway, the instigator behind the P&O Ferries mass sackings is one Peter Hebblethwaite, CEO whose line of defence was that the company in its present form was ‘no longer sustainable’ and that negotiations with unions wouldn’t be possible.

Obviously, Hebblethwaite was in breach of UK employment law, but if he thought that the incident would blow over quickly he was wrong.

The Rule of Law in Britain is central to who we are and how a civilised state operates.

So charges against lawbreaker Hebblethwaite were several including a refusal to give workers’ adequate notice, plus on his own boardroom side a refusal to adhere to directors’ fiduciary duties.

Hebblethwaite was summoned to a Commons committee to explain his actions but with 

breathtaking arrogance informed the committee chairperson that, ‘yes, he had broken the law and furthermore would do it again’. (1)

Well, excuse me, but in context if a motorist had been flagged down for a speeding offence, but agreed with the cops that he had been speeding, and he’d definitely do the same again, it would hardly go down well with the magistrates, would it?

Anyway, faced with public outrage which, incidentally, even came from the Conservative side of the House the government was swift to act in calling for CEO Hebblethwaite’s resignation.

But Hebblethwaite did not resign. He even mentioned a pat on the back he received from DP Ports – P&O Ferries parent company – congratulating him for doing an ‘an amazing job.’ (2)

He was asked by the Commons committee if he could live on £5.50 per hour to which he declined to comment.

So Hebblethwaite’s ‘amazing job’ was not so great was it? In fact the benefits of neoliberalism’s low pay rates only benefit the rich, don’t they?

However, the UK government has introduced some legislation to prevent another P&O Ferries sticking two fingers up at the Rule of Law. And a major player is the Seafarers’ Welfare Charter which although only signed up on a voluntary basis by companies such as Brittany Ferries, Condor, DFDS and Stena, promises a minimum wage for seafarers, plus enhanced working hours and social welfare.

In France the Charter is enshrined in law and there are moves to make it mandatory on the UK side of the Channel too.

But bad actors such as P&O Ferries haven’t signed up to this voluntary code (quelle surprise!).

On the scrap heap: Pride of Kent’s garbage collection point on the forward port side. The personal effects of sacked seafarers were still there one month after the mass sackings as P&O Ferries refused permission for them to reboard and collect.

P&O Ferries had a myriad of reasons why their business was failing – the latest at that time being the pandemic – but in years previous they blamed high fuel prices, unfair competition, short-time working rosters, the French unions – you name it.

From experience I can state that the whole Dover operation seemed to be mismanaged.

For example, jobs were constantly being shed aboard their ships, but if we look at the numbers employed in P&O Dover office (300 approx) compared to the 800 plus at sea, what this tells us is there was a ratio of one office worker to every three crew.

Which seems a skewed ratio, for sure.

Nonetheless,I only periodically took an agency job in Dover mainly to keep the agency sweet.

It wasn’t considered a good gig mainly due to P&O’s tight-fisted accountants; I believe the contract crews at one point hadn’t received a pay rise for three years whilst us agency crew only received a modest increase because they were desperate for staff.

Yet others such as DFDS Ferries seem to remain viable despite employing British and European crews. I sailed on two of their vessels in 2019 and although not privy to the company accounts, I did notice that there was an optimum number of cars, trucks and foot passengers on all sailings.

There was an upbeat feel to the editorials in their magazine which made me think that P&O are merely run by amateurs.

There was much criticism from DFDS crews aimed at P&O Ferries: how their sailing frequencies were mismatched; how their customer care was a joke, but especially criticism of their centralised management building in Dover (‘jobs for the boys’, was a familiar comment).

Anyway, that was then and in the wake of the sackings the new illegally-hired P&O crews will find it tough going. For starters, the original roster of one week on/off ( sometimes a fortnight on/off) doesn’t operate and instead the rosters are now up to 17 weeks.

Again from experience, the weekly rosters were exhausting from either a twelve-hour day or night shift with just one 45 minute meal break.

There are up to 10 sailings to Calais per day and off-duty time would be spent mostly sleeping amidst the noise and vibration.

So much for that, but evidently P&O Ferries are enjoying a power trip after basically getting away with bully-boy tactics.

So let’s hear from the general secretaries of two major seafaring unions who have written to Transport Minister Mark Harper about this dreadful company.

Mr Mick Lynch and Mr Mark Harper of the RMT and Nautilus Union respectively, have told Harper they believe the company is subverting the aims of the Seafarers’ Charter and Wages Act (further UK government legislation) in employing a crewing company known as PhilCrew Management.

With an office in Malta and a further brass-plate office in Singapore (typical ruse in the shipping industry as it ensures anonymity), PhilCrew are apparently negotiating an agreement which would put new recruits on a ten-month contract with most paid below the minimum wage.

Yep, that’s right – double the time aboard ship from 17 weeks to ten months.

PhilCrew are also in cahoots with one cowboy union called International Seafarers Union based in Slovenia.

This ISU is not affiliated to the London-based International Transport Federation, an umbrella organisation of accredited unions who oversee anITF minimum wage and liase with many global unions to promote fair wages and social equality.

And, by the way, the seafarers signed up with PhilCrew would only receive wages for those ten months – any leave periods thereafter are unpaid.

I can’t even think about what ten months continuous on a P&O ferry must be like: 28 monthly shifts x ten months with no periods off ship due to the fast turnarounds in Calais – a nightmare scenario.

As we often say at sea: it’s not a job, it’s a jail sentence.’

But still eager for a fight, the belligerent CEO Hebblethwaite has made moves to sack a fifth of the 84 dockers in the Netherlands. For trade publication Seatrade Maritime News reports that Antwerp-Zeebrugge port has been approached by P&O to handle its vessels in the event of industrial action. (3)

Well, union laws on the side of workers are far more robust in the EU, so the Belgian dockers at Antwerp have resolutely refused and, in response, Nautilus International’s Mark Dickinson stated: 

I have a message for the CEO of P&O Ferries: we won’t cop it and the dockers won’t take this lying down. 

(4)

Ferry passengers’ experience of them wasn’t so positive either as the enclosed reviews from the consumer website reveal: 

These were submitted to Tripadvisor just a few weeks ago but are typical of the type of negative reviews I read up on whilst sailing the Pride of Kent three years back – ‘new year, same old P&O.’

But staff shortages? With all their cheap crews?

Finally, this is a picture of CEO Hebblethwaite’s £1.5 million house is in the Cotswolds, a few miles outside Cirencester. He’s not far from Boris Johnson, David Cameron and other luminaries of the Tory party and so-called Chipping Norton set.

Anyway, the point in including his residence is that at £5.50 an hour, it would take a lowly-paid P&O ferry worker 150 years to buy this.

I hate cliches, but have to say that indeed the rich are getting a lot richer and the poor a lot poorer.

REFERENCES:

1) http://www.telegraph.co.uk 24/03/2022, P&O Ferries Boss…. (accessed 13/01/2024)

2) http://www.metro.co.Uk/ 30/04/2022, P&O Ferries – an ‘amazing job’….(accessed 12/01/2024)

3) Private Eye, 05/01-18/01/2004, No 1614, p.39, (accessed 13/01/2024

4) Ibid