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Post by El Mel on Mar 18, 2022 11:58:26 GMT
800 workers sacked, no protection from EU employment laws due to Brexit.
Bus loads of foreign workers sat dockside ready to replace them, and handcuff trained security staff sent on board to remove the sacked workers.
The company is owned by DP World, who sponsor what was called the European Golf Tour - Emirates based.
They took millions in furlough payments, made millions in profit, and paid millions in dividends last year.
Is it disgreceful, unethical, or just a logical business decision.
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Post by clappyhapper on Mar 18, 2022 13:16:38 GMT
800 workers sacked, no protection from EU employment laws due to Brexit.Bus loads of foreign workers sat dockside ready to replace them, and handcuff trained security staff sent on board to remove the sacked workers. The company is owned by DP World, who sponsor what was called the European Golf Tour - Emirates based. They took millions in furlough payments, made millions in profit, and paid millions in dividends last year. Is it disgreceful, unethical, or just a logical business decision. Mel, that's another remainer, anti Brexit myth. EU Employment law does not legislate against sack and rehire. Individual countries make their own mind up. Ireland and Spain are 2 which have outlawed it, Many other EU countries have not. www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/27/the-guardian-view-on-fire-and-rehire-business-tactics-change-the-lawThis sham is purely down to the morally deficient Arabic owners. I hope they go bust after returning over a £1B in profit, taking £150M from the UK tax payer and gave £270M bonuses to shareholders. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2022 15:57:04 GMT
800 workers sacked, no protection from EU employment laws due to Brexit.Bus loads of foreign workers sat dockside ready to replace them, and handcuff trained security staff sent on board to remove the sacked workers. The company is owned by DP World, who sponsor what was called the European Golf Tour - Emirates based. They took millions in furlough payments, made millions in profit, and paid millions in dividends last year. Is it disgreceful, unethical, or just a logical business decision. Mel, that's another remainer, anti Brexit myth. EU Employment law does not legislate against sack and rehire. Individual countries make their own mind up. Ireland and Spain are 2 which have outlawed it, Many other EU countries have not. www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/27/the-guardian-view-on-fire-and-rehire-business-tactics-change-the-lawThis sham is purely down to the morally deficient Arabic owners. I hope they go bust after returning over a £1B in profit, taking £150M from the UK tax payer and gave £270M bonuses to shareholders. I've not looked at that link, but doesnt UK law actually outlaw mass instant redundancy? You can't summarily dismiss 20+ people from a single geography without a period of consultation with employers and unions. Although, any unfair dismissal claim would probably get them 3 months pay or similar, which is likely less than the severance they're being offered. |
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Post by santiagoterrier on Mar 18, 2022 16:14:07 GMT
I believe this is similar to action Tesco tried not long ago, they wanted to make warehouse staff redundant and then set them back on on lower wages etc, “better” terms and conditions as far as Tesco were concerned to save money / increase profitability.
It went to court and they lost. (I note P&O have new staff waiting, rather than re hiring their existing)
What P&O have just done may technically but legal but morally it fkin stinks and I would worry that lots of other large companies will watch how this goes and think we should do the same !
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2022 16:19:29 GMT
The RMT union may not be blameless in this fiasco.
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Post by clappyhapper on Mar 18, 2022 16:29:06 GMT
I've not looked at that link, but doesnt UK law actually outlaw mass instant redundancy? You can't summarily dismiss 20+ people from a single geography without a period of consultation with employers and unions. Although, any unfair dismissal claim would probably get them 3 months pay or similar, which is likely less than the severance they're being offered. I think you're right and according to someone I know in HR, what they've done does break UK employment law, but the fines for this are cheaper than redundancy and chances of UK fines being paid by an Arab owner are slim at best, as is the chances of HMRC getting a fair tax take. I wonder if the ferries are registered outside the UK? Bet they are. UK law doesn't really apply to Arabs, as anyone who's seen their spoilt brat kids tearing around London at over 150MPH, racing in their supercars will know. www.thesun.co.uk/news/9700002/arabs-london-racetrack-supercars-noise/ |
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Post by Deep Space on Mar 18, 2022 21:02:29 GMT
I have unfortunately both had to make people redundant and have been made redundant, & I am struggling to see how what they did can be remotely legal. Assuming they were employed in Britain, then UK law applies, which to my knowledge hasn't altered post-Brexit, and requires a proper consultation process and is predicated on an assumption that the job has ceased to exist. Simply dumping people to re-employ others on a lower wage & poorer terms & conditions isn't legal. Of course, their plan might well be to hope that enough people take the cash & run (which might mean they get rid of a sizeable chunk of the workforce & then re-employ the rest on the new T&Cs), but I'd assume anyone who actually wanted to pursue this would have a prima facie case against them.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2022 21:09:59 GMT
I have unfortunately both had to make people redundant and have been made redundant, & I am struggling to see how what they did can be remotely legal. Assuming they were employed in Britain, then UK law applies, which to my knowledge hasn't altered post-Brexit, and requires a proper consultation process and is predicated on an assumption that the job has ceased to exist. Simply dumping people to re-employ others on a lower wage & poorer terms & conditions isn't legal. Of course, their plan might well be to hope that enough people take the cash & run (which might mean they get rid of a sizeable chunk of the workforce & then re-employ the rest on the new T&Cs), but I'd assume anyone who actually wanted to pursue this would have a prima facie case against them. That is exactly my understanding. But - assuming it would be unlawful dismissal, what exactly do you get for that? It's something like a week or a week and a half pay per year of service up to a MAXIMUM of 1 years pay isn't it? (and only applies if you've been employed for at least 2 years). If they've been offered 3 months pay or more, most of them will be better off just accepting the settlement anyway?? Good luck to all of them in finding new jobs as quickly as possible...I suspect they won't be alone :/ |
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Post by Deep Space on Mar 18, 2022 21:23:08 GMT
I have unfortunately both had to make people redundant and have been made redundant, & I am struggling to see how what they did can be remotely legal. Assuming they were employed in Britain, then UK law applies, which to my knowledge hasn't altered post-Brexit, and requires a proper consultation process and is predicated on an assumption that the job has ceased to exist. Simply dumping people to re-employ others on a lower wage & poorer terms & conditions isn't legal. Of course, their plan might well be to hope that enough people take the cash & run (which might mean they get rid of a sizeable chunk of the workforce & then re-employ the rest on the new T&Cs), but I'd assume anyone who actually wanted to pursue this would have a prima facie case against them. That is exactly my understanding. But - assuming it would be unlawful dismissal, what exactly do you get for that? It's something like a week or a week and a half pay per year of service up to a MAXIMUM of 1 years pay isn't it? (and only applies if you've been employed for at least 2 years). If they've been offered 3 months pay or more, most of them will be better off just accepting the settlement anyway?? Good luck to all of them in finding new jobs as quickly as possible...I suspect they won't be alone :/ Yes that's broadly right (we are talking wrongful rather than unfair here) although a court could potentially instruct them to restart the process & do it legally as well as imposing costs. Which begs the question why not just do it correctly to start with. This could include offering suitable alternatives which might be the lower value contracts. I imagine that their very expensive legal team will have gone through a range of scenarios & modelling to weigh up the risk-benefit of doing it this way. Personally, I'd swim before I'd get on a P&O ferry now so I'd hope that there might be a public backlash. |
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Post by El Mel on Mar 18, 2022 21:40:22 GMT
I'd imagine a lot of these workers are protected by some pretty well established Unions. Be a bit of a litmus test to see how much power the unions still have as this rumbles on.
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Post by Deep Space on Mar 18, 2022 21:45:04 GMT
I'd imagine a lot of these workers are protected by some pretty well established Unions. Be a bit of a litmus test to see how much power the unions still have as this rumbles on. I think there's little the unions can ultimately do, at least that's legal anyway. They can't strike as they don't have a job to strike from as we speak. Any picket line against the agency workers can legally only have 6 people in it & even those 6 might class as secondary. Personally, I'd be seeing if anyone knows how to scuttle a large ferry. |
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Post by htfcfcfc on Mar 19, 2022 5:45:24 GMT
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Post by santiagoterrier on Mar 19, 2022 8:17:09 GMT
That is exactly my understanding. But - assuming it would be unlawful dismissal, what exactly do you get for that? It's something like a week or a week and a half pay per year of service up to a MAXIMUM of 1 years pay isn't it? (and only applies if you've been employed for at least 2 years). If they've been offered 3 months pay or more, most of them will be better off just accepting the settlement anyway?? Good luck to all of them in finding new jobs as quickly as possible...I suspect they won't be alone :/ Yes that's broadly right (we are talking wrongful rather than unfair here) although a court could potentially instruct them to restart the process & do it legally as well as imposing costs. Which begs the question why not just do it correctly to start with. This could include offering suitable alternatives which might be the lower value contracts. I imagine that their very expensive legal team will have gone through a range of scenarios & modelling to weigh up the risk-benefit of doing it this way. Personally, I'd swim before I'd get on a P&O ferry now so I'd hope that there might be a public backlash. Not a dig at you and your “I’d rather swim” comment but sadly lots of people will be making the same claim for the next few days while this is still a headline story but then in the coming weeks and months the vast majority will end up booking on P&O again as there’s either no alternative or it’s cheaper or simply because they’ve used them before and they are reluctant to change. |
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Post by Deep Space on Mar 19, 2022 8:28:27 GMT
Yes that's broadly right (we are talking wrongful rather than unfair here) although a court could potentially instruct them to restart the process & do it legally as well as imposing costs. Which begs the question why not just do it correctly to start with. This could include offering suitable alternatives which might be the lower value contracts. I imagine that their very expensive legal team will have gone through a range of scenarios & modelling to weigh up the risk-benefit of doing it this way. Personally, I'd swim before I'd get on a P&O ferry now so I'd hope that there might be a public backlash. Not a dig at you and your “I’d rather swim” comment but sadly lots of people will be making the same claim for the next few days while this is still a headline story but then in the coming weeks and months the vast majority will end up booking on P&O again as there’s either no alternative or it’s cheaper or simply because they’ve used them before and they are reluctant to change. To be honest, I completely agree. There are examples of companies being wrecked by PR disasters (if you haven't come across it before, look up the 'American breaks guitars' story when an attempt to save $3500 wiped about $180m off the value of American Airlines). I think for the most part though, it's usually a case of today's news is tomorrow's chip wrapping. |
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Post by santiagoterrier on Mar 19, 2022 8:45:34 GMT
Not a dig at you and your “I’d rather swim” comment but sadly lots of people will be making the same claim for the next few days while this is still a headline story but then in the coming weeks and months the vast majority will end up booking on P&O again as there’s either no alternative or it’s cheaper or simply because they’ve used them before and they are reluctant to change. To be honest, I completely agree. There are examples of companies being wrecked by PR disasters (if you haven't come across it before, look up the 'American breaks guitars' story when an attempt to save $3500 wiped about $180m off the value of American Airlines). I think for the most part though, it's usually a case of today's news is tomorrow's chip wrapping. Gerald Ratner of Ratners Jewllery Stores was a great example, everyone knew that a silver plated tea service including tray for £19.99 was NOT going to become a priceless family heirloom, it was a gift that was within price range for the masses and were happy to leave it at that but when the owner of the shops told everyone it’s all crap the majority of customers decided he’s right I’m better buying it from Argos or Woolworths instead. |
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