March 25th - The Government Response To The P&O Ferries' Mass Sacking
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 25 March 2022
⏱️ 6 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The government has vowed to make P&O Ferries "undo" its the mass-sacking of 800 of its workers. Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, said the ferry firm had “exploited a loophole” that would now be closed off by legislation and applied retrospectively. The Prime Minister has also weighed in, saying at PMQs that, "We will be taking steps to protect all mariners that are working in UK waters and ensuring they are paid the living wage." I give an overview of how the uproar around P&O Ferries has come about and what this means for mariners and passengers going forward.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Simon Calder, welcoming you to my independent travel podcast, the last one of the week, |
| 0:07.4 | bringing you the latest news on travelling, whether you're just dreaming of a great escape, |
| 0:12.1 | looking forward to one or actually away and having the time of your life. |
| 0:17.5 | Well, what I have been looking at over the past 24 hours is the very, very messy business of P&O Ferries, which you'll recall, eight days ago, sacked nearly 800 UK boast crew, saying they were effectively going to leave the company, they were going to be paid, |
| 0:38.8 | in most cases, several tens of thousands of pounds, and that they would be replaced by cheaper |
| 0:45.2 | agency labour. As you will know, this has caused absolute uproar right across the political |
| 0:53.7 | spectrum. The company says we thought long and hard about |
| 0:57.4 | this, we considered every possible option and we concluded that all of them would result in the |
| 1:03.1 | closure of P&O ferries. And they said, yep, so we came up with 36.5 million pounds, the largest maritime settlement arrangement in history. |
| 1:16.5 | Effectively, he was saying we wanted to pay off the sailors so that we can get cheaper ones in and we can compete. |
| 1:24.7 | Now, who were they competing against? |
| 1:26.6 | Well, Irish ferries who on the key |
| 1:31.1 | Dover to Calais route in June 2021 started sailing and it basically, their model uses cheap |
| 1:40.1 | labour supplied through agencies so therefore they could, undercut P&O Ferries. |
| 1:45.8 | And turns out there was a meeting in Dubai in November when DP World, hope you're paying |
| 1:53.2 | attention, this is the parent company of P&O Ferries, raise the challenges facing P&O Ferries |
| 2:00.2 | with the Transport Secretary and the Sultan Ahmed bin |
| 2:05.3 | Suleiman said to Grant Shaps there's a new low-cost competitor from Irish Ferries. |
| 2:13.8 | This poses challenges and by the way we kept Ferries operating during the height of the pandemic to support movement of people and goods. |
| 2:23.8 | And the Transport Secretary then said, yeah, I'm aware of this. |
| 2:27.9 | You'll need to make commercial decisions to keep us informed. |
| 2:31.0 | Well, and they were sort of informed on Wednesday the 16th of March when they told |
... |
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