A Masterclass in Employee Relations from P&O Ferries

[Left Back]

6 minutes ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

Yep, Johnson's Tories - Champions of the workers. They complied, ok. No great noise made until this shit blew up though, as their supporters would not have been best pleased at continued bending of the knee to Brussels.
Strange it's only the UK workers being fucked over, don't you think?
LB - how far do you think they will push for realistic compensation for UK workers, and how severely will the cűnts at P&O be punished - if at all?

Maybe you could stop being blinded by hatred to take an objective look at the situation.

P&O are c***s.  I’d happily throw the gaffer and the entire board in jail for what they’ve done.  I’d stop them and their parent company doing business in the UK.  I’m blaming the people who are actually to blame for this situation.

I have no love for our government but they aren’t at fault here.

[WhiteRoseKillie]

Maybe you could stop being blinded by hatred to take an objective look at the situation.
P&O are c***s.  I’d happily throw the gaffer and the entire board in jail for what they’ve done.  I’d stop them and their parent company doing business in the UK.  I’m blaming the people who are actually to blame for this situation.
I have no love for our government but they aren’t at fault here.

I'm not blinded - eyes wide fucking open as they have been since Thatcher declared war on the working class.
No matter how bad DP are, it's the UK government's first and main duty to protect the interests of its citizens, not to create the conditions which allow this kind of behaviour.
Lets just see the response from the horrible, horrible asset stripping cűnts in government. I'm not holding my breath.
And yes, I do hate this racist, thieving, criminally negligent parcel of fucking rogues. Not a redeeming feature anywhere. They've killed any chance my kids and grandkids had of a decent future, and that I cannot, and will not forgive.

[welshbairn]

1 hour ago, Left Back said:

I have no love for our government but they aren’t at fault here.

I thought they blocked legislation banning sack and rehire? Don't know the details.

[Detournement]

1 hour ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

Yep, Johnson's Tories - Champions of the workers. They complied, ok. No great noise made until this shit blew up though, as their supporters would not have been best pleased at continued bending of the knee to Brussels.
Strange it's only the UK workers being fucked over, don't you think?
LB - how far do you think they will push for realistic compensation for UK workers, and how severely will the cűnts at P&O be punished - if at all?

Because we have the most restrictive rules on trade union activity and strikes. Secondary strikes being illegal in the UK destroyed working class power.

That's obviously down to the Tories and goes back to Thatcher but even the TUC and especially GMB and Unison don't seem that bothered about those laws.

Edited March 25, 2022 by Detournement

[Left Back]

5 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

I thought they blocked legislation banning sack and rehire? Don't know the details.

If that was what P&O were doing here you might have a point.  It isn’t, so you don’t.

[welshbairn]

Just now, Left Back said:

If that was what P&O were doing here you might have a point.  It isn’t, so you don’t.

Eh? I thought that was exactly the issue, sacking the workforce and rehiring on far worse conditions. If not, what is it?

[Left Back]

2 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Eh? I thought that was exactly the issue, sacking the workforce and rehiring on far worse conditions. If not, what is it?

They’re replacing the workforce, not re-hiring the existing workforce.

[Detournement]

4 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Eh? I thought that was exactly the issue, sacking the workforce and rehiring on far worse conditions. If not, what is it?

They have just sacked the workforce and are hiring Indians to replace them.

Fire and rehire is when you are given a deadline to agree to a new contract and if you don't sign it you are automatically p45'd. It happened to me a couple of years ago, it's extremely unpleasant. 

Edited March 25, 2022 by Detournement

[welshbairn]

2 minutes ago, Detournement said:

They have just sacked the workforce and are hiring Indians to replace them.

Fire and rehire is when you are given a deadline to agree to a new contract and if you don't sign it you are automatically p45's. It happened to me a couple of years ago, it's extremely unpleasant. 

Colombians rather than Indians apparently according the French unions. Morally I don't see much difference, presumably the Maltese agency recruiting the new staff would be delighted to hire some sacked workers who know the ship well on a fraction of their old pay.

[Detournement]

11 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Colombians rather than Indians apparently according the French unions. Morally I don't see much difference, presumably the Maltese agency recruiting the new staff would be delighted to hire some sacked workers who know the ship well on a fraction of their old pay.

It think it's guaranteed that if you are now or ever have been a member of a trade union then you are not getting the new slave wage jobs.

There has been talk about dockers not unloading the ships in the UK, France and Holland. Hopefully that happens.

[Left Back]

1 minute ago, welshbairn said:

Colombians rather than Indians apparently according the French unions. Morally I don't see much difference, presumably the Maltese agency recruiting the new staff would be delighted to hire some sacked workers who know the ship well on a fraction of their old pay.

There’s a huge difference.  This is not  a fire and re-hire scenario.  Do you really think a British worker is even thinking of applying for a job at half the minimum wage?  P&O are getting rid of those guys to save cash.

The Tories are up in arms because the fannies that wanted Brexit thought they were doing it to stop brown people taking English jobs.

This isn’t rocket science if you can take the blinkers off.

They might get away with it if it’s accepted there is no criminal case to answer if they only have to notify the countries where the ships are flagged.  Reputationally P&O are now fucked in the UK if they do.  

Can’t see the P&O boss getting off with this though.  Too politically damaging.  The government will do everything they can to ruin him.

Other industries wouldn’t even attempt something like this as the law isn’t in question for most other industries.  The bosses would be facing criminal charges.

As I type P&O ships are being impounded as unfit to sail.

[Detournement]

1 minute ago, Left Back said:

There’s a huge difference.  This is not  a fire and re-hire scenario.  Do you really think a British worker is even thinking of applying for a job at half the minimum wage?  P&O are getting rid of those guys to save cash.

 

This is why' Fire and Rehire' is a bad phrase.

The P&O workers are being made redundant and getting their legal entitlements. With ''Fire and Rehire" you either sign the new contract (rehire) or get p45'd and get no redundancy (fire). 

This is how companies can force their full workforces to the brink and retain 99%. Unions also legally have to advise workers to sign the contract as they aren't allowed to give advice which leads to P45. From my experience and observing other disputes unions are quite happy about the situation.

[Busta Nut]

Unions are a waste of fuckin time.

I grudge paying my 12 quid a month to nodding bobble headed yes persons.

[101]

45 minutes ago, Detournement said:

This is why' Fire and Rehire' is a bad phrase.

The P&O workers are being made redundant and getting their legal entitlements. With ''Fire and Rehire" you either sign the new contract (rehire) or get p45'd and get no redundancy (fire). 

This is how companies can force their full workforces to the brink and retain 99%. Unions also legally have to advise workers to sign the contract as they aren't allowed to give advice which leads to P45. From my experience and observing other disputes unions are quite happy about the situation.

Yeh best thing to do is support those that tell the companies to get fucked. I have an ex British Gas guy who services my boiler and he's absolutely brilliant

Edited March 26, 2022 by 101

[IrishBhoy]

On 20/03/2022 at 12:56, oaksoft said:

Taking a 5 figure monthly wage, a new car and a paid-for apartment when your staff are on $10 a day?

I have to be honest. I personally wouldn't touch a job like that with a bargepole. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night with the guilt.

To be fair I can sort of understand that. I’m unlikely to ever be in that position so it’s hard to say one way or the other what I would do if faced with the choice. I think the money/lifestyle could be very hard to turn down, and even a couple of years at those wages could set your family up for years to come if you were clever with it. On the other hand you would be turning up to work every day knowing that the people in your charge are living a much harder life, miles away from their families and earning a lot less money for arguably a harder job. It is a moral dilemma, although thinking about it now it’s a situation that is repeated all over the world, and if I was offered something like that I don’t think I would turn it down. It’s a completely different culture for workers from the Middle East, and companies are well aware of what they can offer them. Just because their working practices are alien to us, it doesn’t mean that a British/European person  should feel compelled to knock back a well paying job in the Middle East on the basis that you don’t think it pays it’s foreign workers enough. 
 

It’s all relative, and in a previous employment I was a contractor for Serco, who’s CEO at the time was Winston Churchills grandson, Rupert Soames. His 2020 salary was £7.4 million, and as a contractor to Serco mine was about 1/100th of that. I was on the tools, working under trains doing manual labour, putting in long hours, travelling up and down the country, putting stress on my joints and overall health and working in loud, dirty train depots. I don’t think Rupert would have been losing any sleep over my working conditions as he collected his millions, and absolutely no one would be claiming it was morally wrong to accept a job with Serco in those circumstances. 

[IrishBhoy]

On 20/03/2022 at 18:50, Mark Connolly said:

Two wrongs don't make a right, but two negatives can make a positive.

Really makes you think

That was a negative, and right now I need two positives. One to cancel out the negative and another one just so I can have a positive. 

[IrishBhoy]

On 20/03/2022 at 18:53, oaksoft said:

To be complicit you'd need to actively know it was going on and continue regardless would you not agree?

Also equally complicit?

There is an enormous difference between taking a 5-figure monthly wage KNOWING your staff were starving in the streets and taking that sort of wage genuinely unaware that this was happening. One is being complicit, the other clearly is not.

I should say after reading on, I think these guys that had came from India and Pakistan were also being given free accommodation by Etihad, although obviously I’m unsure of the living conditions. They certainly weren’t starving on the street, and from the pictures that I’ve seen they look to be working in quite pleasant conditions, fully kitted out with PPE etc. 

[101]

7 hours ago, IrishBhoy said:

To be fair I can sort of understand that. I’m unlikely to ever be in that position so it’s hard to say one way or the other what I would do if faced with the choice. I think the money/lifestyle could be very hard to turn down, and even a couple of years at those wages could set your family up for years to come if you were clever with it. On the other hand you would be turning up to work every day knowing that the people in your charge are living a much harder life, miles away from their families and earning a lot less money for arguably a harder job. It is a moral dilemma, although thinking about it now it’s a situation that is repeated all over the world, and if I was offered something like that I don’t think I would turn it down. It’s a completely different culture for workers from the Middle East, and companies are well aware of what they can offer them. Just because their working practices are alien to us, it doesn’t mean that a British/European person  should feel compelled to knock back a well paying job in the Middle East on the basis that you don’t think it pays it’s foreign workers enough. 
 

It’s all relative, and in a previous employment I was a contractor for Serco, who’s CEO at the time was Winston Churchills grandson, Rupert Soames. His 2020 salary was £7.4 million, and as a contractor to Serco mine was about 1/100th of that. I was on the tools, working under trains doing manual labour, putting in long hours, travelling up and down the country, putting stress on my joints and overall health and working in loud, dirty train depots. I don’t think Rupert would have been losing any sleep over my working conditions as he collected his millions, and absolutely no one would be claiming it was morally wrong to accept a job with Serco in those circumstances. 

This is why the 5 to 1 or even 10 to 1 rule would be great to achieve through either law or taxation.

Ben and Jerry's stuck at the 5 to 1 rule so capped the CEO pay at 82,000 dollars.

[Florentine_Pogen]

Noticed on TV last night that P&O cruises have ads basically saying "WE have nothing to do with P&O Ferries, please give us your custom, we are good guys....

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/25/p-and-o-british-sea-shipping-seafarers?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

[vikingTON]

10 hours ago, Busta Nut said:

Unions are a waste of fuckin time.

I grudge paying my 12 quid a month to nodding bobble headed yes persons.

Some unions are run by deluded, out of touch clowns - such as Larry Flanagan of the EIS, who infamously complained about Covid restrictions because they would impinge on the teachers' October break plans!

The RMT are syndicalists who are very successful in securing the best short-term financial deal for its members, but are setting themselves up for disaster by giving a huge incentive to empty their employees from underground and rail services in the years to come. 

The wider issue is that unions aren't in the room with management in a meaningful way. Labour relations in the UK have been a running joke for decades and the Tories have just flipped it from one useless extreme to the other.