P&O Ferries makes 800 staff redundant and warns of 'significant disruption' to services 'over next few days' (2024)

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P&O Ferries makes 800 staff redundant and warns of 'significant disruption' to services 'over next few days'? ›

British ferry operator P&O Ferries made 800 staff redundant and suspended sailing with immediate effect Thursday. The company told its workers to return to ports ahead of a "major announcement" earlier Thursday, in a move likely to have caused severe disruption to travel for passengers and freight.

P&O explained that for some time their business model had been impractical, resulting in losses of £100 million per annum, and that they needed to drastically reduce the wage bill to become profitable.

The firm fired staff without notice or union consultation to replace them with low-paid agency staff, which P&O admitted had broken the law. Following the sackings, the government announced a review of all its contracts with P&O Ferries.

P&O Ferries has claimed it did not break the law by making 800 staff redundant without consultation or warning last week. Subsequently, the company's actions have ignited a nationwide inquest into the employer's ethical and legal obligations to its workers.

And according to the Guardian, P&O Ferries has exploited a legislative loophole that has allowed it to pay some crew members hired from overseas less than the UK minimum wage – in some cases paying £4.87 an hour rather than the £5.15 it told MPs it was paying.

In early 2025 P&O Cruises Australia brand will be sunset and its operations integrated into sister line, Carnival Cruise Line. As a result, the following itineraries are affected. If you are booked on one of these itineraries you will be contacted by Guest Services in the coming days with refund details.

P&O Ferries, which controversially sacked about 800 workers in 2022, has paid some crew members less than half the UK minimum wage thanks to an ongoing legal loophole the British government promised to close two years ago.

Financial trouble and mass firings

On 17th March 2022, P&O suspended operations and dismissed 800 employees. Staff were informed by a short pre-recorded message advising their employment was 'terminated with immediate effect due to redundancy'.

On Tuesday, Mr Hebblethwaite told MPs that the agency workers P&O now uses to crew its boats can be paid as little as £4.87 a hour- that includes overtime and bonuses. On average, P&O workers make £5.20 an hour. The chief executive said crew is paid in excess of the minimum basic wage set out by international law.

It said more than 40 workers will receive more than £100,000, while no worker will receive less than £15,000. P&O is offering two-and-a-half weeks' salary for each year of employment, as well as up to 13 weeks' salary in lieu of notice, and a further 13 weeks' salary because of the absence of a consultation period.

Is P&O owned by Russia? ›

P&O Ferries is owned by Dubai-based DP World, while P&O Cruises is part of the British-American Carnival Corporation and plc, incorporated in Panama.

Who owns P&O Cruises? P&O Cruises is part of Carnival Corporation & plc – the world's largest leisure company – and has been for over 20 years. Carnival is based in the USA and its combined fleet includes over 100 ships across several cruise lines including Cunard, Princess and Carnival Cruise Line.

P&O Cruises confirmed to the BBC that the illness was norovirus . Earlier on Wednesday, a spokeswoman reported there were "currently 0.64% symptomatic on-board Ventura". She would not reveal the figures at their peak - but added that it proved "the efficacy of our extensive protocols".

The way P&O sacked 800 staff with the aim of replacing them with overseas agency staff was "illegal" and "one of the most shameful incidents in British industrial relations", a trade union leader has told Sky News.

Last year a separate company, P&O Ferries, became embroiled in a dispute over the sacking of 800 of its workers by its owner DP World. The firm sacked staff without notice, replacing them with foreign agency workers who were paid less than the UK minimum wage. Later, the firm's boss admitted the sackings were illegal.

P&O Ferries CEO Peter Hebblethwaite - who earns £500,000 a year - admits seafaring crew on his boats are paid just £4.87 an hour. The boss of cross-Channel ferry operator P&O has admitted his company pay on-board crew just £4.87 an hour - and that he wouldn't be able to live on such a wage.

The state-operated ferries have been short of crew since losing trained workers to retirement, resignation and furloughs during deep cuts in the operating schedule amid the worst of the COVID-induced collapse in travel, which coincided with steep cuts in state funding.