The China Mail - P&O Ferries axes UK jobs to stay afloat, sparking angry protests

The Dubai-owned group announced it has shed more than one quarter of its staff in a drastic restructuring to save cash, and halted services for the next few days.

"We are providing 800 seafarers with immediate severance notices," the company owned by DP World said in a bombshell statement.

P&O -- which is based in the southern English port of Dover and operates four routes serving Britain, France, Ireland and the Netherlands -- has suspended passenger and freight ships.

The company was badly hit over the last two years by the Covid pandemic, which ravaged the travel sector with multiple lockdowns and travel restrictions.

Earlier Thursday at Dover, local P&O management had revealed "the dismissal of 800 British sailors" who would be replaced by cheaper Colombian crew and temporary staff in order to slash costs, according to a French union source.

The source stressed that French workers would be unaffected.

Security agents later escorted affected P&O personnel from Dover facilities, while 100 Colombians and 40 temporary workers boarded the group's ferries that were stationed there, the source added.

- 'Wholly unacceptable' -

The company's move brought cross-party condemnation. Transport minister Robert Courts told parliament that the way staff had been treated was "wholly unacceptable".

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the government was seeking urgent talks with the company, which justified its move because it was facing a £100 million ($131 million, 119 million euro) loss, making its business unviable.

The main opposition Labour party's transport spokeswoman, Louise Haigh, said the company was "beneath contempt" but said it was the "cruel consequence" of the Conservative government's failure to outlaw "fire and rehire" practices.

P&O said its losses had been covered by DP World but the situation was "not sustainable".

"Our survival is dependent on making swift and significant changes now. Without these changes there is no future for P&O Ferries," it added.

The company was forced to take "a very difficult but necessary decision... after seriously considering all the available options".

P&O has assured it was not heading for liquidation after ordering all ships to return to dock.

The RMT union added that security guards with handcuffs had been seeking to board ships in Dover to remove crew members.

- Staff 'fuming' -

Police were meanwhile forced to intervene when dozens of P&O staff blocked a key road leading to Dover after P&O buses carrying agency workers appeared at the port.

"I'm fuming, to be honest with you," said one 54-year-old engine room worker, who has been with P&O since the 1980s, angry at how staff were told.

"This is no way to treat people. It was just a short message this morning saying you've all lost a job, basically -- all this service for nothing."

Elsewhere, sailors in the northern English port of Hull refused to leave their P&O vessel 'The Pride Of Hull', according to local lawmaker Karl Turner, who called the company's actions "disgraceful".

- 'Fire and rehire' -

Britain's biggest public sector union Unite urged P&O to reconsider the "savage" decision "to dismiss its entire UK seafaring workforce to replace them with cheaper labour".

Although its members are not affected, it said it was a "very concerning signal" that UK labour contracts were "under attack".

Transport workers' trade union TSSA also lashed out, adding P&O had encouraged staff to re-apply for agency work under what it described as a "fire and rehire" policy.

"This is absolutely despicable behaviour from P&O, designed to reduce pay, and worsen terms and conditions for their staff," said TSSA general secretary Manuel Cortes.

"They should be ashamed of themselves, treating loyal and hardworking staff like this."

He added: "In any civilised country these actions would not only be unlawful but punishable in the harshest possible terms. Sadly, I doubt the Tory government will lift even their little finger to ensure this happens."

R.Yeung--ThChM