Why has P&O ferries laid off its staff?

Coffee House Shots

The Spectator

News, Politics, Government, Daily News

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2022

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today P&O ferries announced to 800 staff that they were being made redundant with immediate effect as security mounted to ferries to escort the staff off the premises.

The company said the staff will be served with "enhanced" severance packages, calling it a "necessary decision" to protect its remaining 2,200 staff. Was this fair when they received furlough pay from the taxpayer all through lockdown?

Also on the podcast, the Bank of England has announced a rise in interest rates in a bid to curb inflationary pressures. Can this help ease the looming cost of living crisis?

All to be discussed as Katy Balls speaks to Kate Andrews and James Forsyth.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This podcast is sponsored by Canacord Genuity Wealth Management,
0:04.3	award-winning Wealth Managers who go above and beyond to support and guide you.
0:09.1	Visit candewelth.com to start building your wealth with confidence.
0:16.8	Hello and welcome to Coffee Hair Shots,
0:18.5	Inspectorate's Daily Politics Podcast,
0:21.2	I'm Katie Balls, and I'm joined by James Asylum,
0:23.3	Kate Andrews, our economics editor.
0:25.6	Today, P&O fairies have sacked 800 staff with workers told in a video call that today was
0:33.2	the final day of their employment, and since then, the situation has escalated.
0:37.9	Kate, can you bring us up to date with what's been happening?
0:40.6	So, P&O fairies have instructed private security to head to their fairies and possibly remove
0:47.5	staff who are refusing to disembark after this video message was sent out to roughly 800
0:53.2	employees and informing them that they were more or less losing their jobs.
0:58.0	It's an absolute disaster for P&O fairies.
1:00.4	I mean, the PR of this alone is just utterly disgusting.
1:04.2	You know, you have people reporting that they were let go in this horrible way via video.
1:08.2	Now they're being threatened to be basically man-handled off of these boats,
1:12.0	and unions are suggesting that they have hired workers from overseas and plan to replace them
1:17.7	presumably at a lower hourly cost.
1:20.6	So, nothing about this, I think, is screams, you know, in P&O's favor.
1:25.6	I think another problem for P&O is that they're reported to have taken 15 million pounds of
1:30.1	furlough money during the pandemic, and I think you're going to have a lot of people out there
	...

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