P&O Ferries chief insists they did NOT break the law by mass sacking of 800 staff on the spot… because their ships were registered OUTSIDE the UK
- P&O Ferries chief Peter Hebblethwaite has insisted that the operator did not break British labour laws
- In a letter to Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, he said that their ships were registered outside the UK
- The Government has threatened to criminally prosecute P&O Ferries if it is found to have broken labour laws
- Business Minister Paul Scully said that the Government is also reviewing contracts with its owner DP World
- P&O Ferries dramatically fired 800 seafarers via Zoom video call last week, sparking large protests
The millionaire boss of P&O Ferries has insisted that the disgraced operator did not break British labour laws by sensationally sacking 800 seafarers without notice in one fell swoop via video call – because their ships were registered outside of the UK.
Writing to Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng yesterday, Peter Hebblethwaite said the ‘very clear statutory obligation in the particular circumstances that applied was for each company to notify the competent authority of the state where the vessel is registered’.
The chief executive, who fired 800 crew on the spot to replace them with cheaper agency workers and defended an earlier round of sackings by declaring ‘only the fittest survive’, wrote that notification had been made to the relevant authorities on March 17, and that no offence had been committed regarding notifying the Secretary of State.
Mr Hebblethwaite added that the firm was ‘painfully aware’ of the ‘distress’ caused to workers and their families on being sacked without warning or consultation, but added that this course of action was taken as a ‘last resort’.
P&O Ferries also announced that it would pay more than £36million in compensation to sacked staff, with 40 employees in line for payments of more than £100,000. It said payouts would be linked to the period of service, and in some cases exceed £170,000.
The total value of the settlement is £36,541,648, with no worker set to receive less than £15,000, the company added.
But the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has said that P&O’s claims that it had not broken any laws do not mean that the ferry firm will not face legal action.
Its general secretary Frances O’Grady told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘We don’t believe their legal advice is right and in the past, in fact, P&O has followed consultation rules, so either their very expensive legal advice has changed or their morals have just fallen through the floor.’
It comes as the Government threatened to criminally prosecute and impose unlimited fines on P&O Ferries if the operator is found to have broken labour laws.
Former workers have reacted with fury to the announcement, with one telling The Times newspaper: ‘This is a total betrayal. It is clear, just as they were due to respond to the Government, that they want everyone to think they have done the right thing. I don’t want a payoff, I want the job I loved and gave me a life’.
The Nautilus union said P&O Ferries’ ‘shameless actions now extend to trying to buy its way out of a legal predicament exposed by the unions, obligation to report to the secretary of state and to consult with the recognised trades unions’.
A P&O ferry remains moored at the Port of Dover in Kent after the ferry giant handed 800 seafarers immediate severance notices last week and services remain suspended, March 22, 2022
Writing to Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng yesterday, chief executive Peter Hebblethwaite said the ‘very clear statutory obligation in the particular circumstances that applied was for each company to notify the competent authority of the state where the vessel is registered’
What’s going on?
P&O Ferries has made 800 workers redundant and replaced them with cheaper agency staff.
Can it do that?
Unions have threatened legal action and lawyers suggested workers could bring unfair dismissal claims. Tom Long, partner at law firm Shakespeare Martineau, said the move ‘appears to contravene the requirements needed for a normal mass redundancy’.
Booked a ferry?
P&O Ferries was updating guidance over Twitter every half an hour yesterday. On some routes, including Dover to Calais, it advised customers to show up as usual and make their way to check-in booths run by ferry company DFDS. On others, such as between Larne and Cairnryan, the firm suggested customers only travel if essential.
Other options?
If you are travelling in the near future you can book on an alternative carrier. DFDS and Irish Ferries offer routes between Dover and Calais. There are no direct alternatives for the other routes but Stena Line offers services to Ireland and Holland.
Refunds?
The firm has not commented but its terms and conditions say it will refund the ‘total fare’ of a crossing if ‘we cannot ship you at all with us or arrange a suitable alternative ferry crossing, or if you do not wish to take any alternative journey offered by us’.
And P&O Cruises?
P&O Cruises is owned by a different company and is not affected by the disruption.
They added: ‘P&O Ferries are claiming to be offering the “largest compensation package in the British marine sector” – a company in such desperate financial circumstances that it is prepared to spend £36.6million on a fake redundancy.
‘Let’s be clear, this statement is confirmation that P&O Ferries believes that with enough money it has no need to follow the laws of this country or be hindered by ethical business standards despite the glitzy commitments of its parent company in Dubai.
‘Instead, it intends to bully our maritime professionals into signing settlement agreements to buy their silence.’
Miss O’Grady said it was the case that one of their ferries was registered in Cyprus and another in the Bahamas, adding: ‘These are all about tax arrangements, but it’s the workers’ contracts that we’re looking closely at’.
She told the Today programme this morning: ‘We believe that P&O has acted unlawfully. It’s now clear that they deliberately flouted UK law in failing to consult with workers and their unions and sacking those 800 loyal and skilled seafarers.
‘We also now know, of course, that ministers knew that the sackings were imminent, and they knew before the workers knew, and they failed to inform unions too, so now the ball is in the Government’s court to make sure that P&O either reinstates those workers or they pay a very high price.’
She also insisted ministers ‘must come down on P&O like a ton of bricks’, adding: ‘If P&O is allowed to get away with a slap on the wrist, it will be a green light for employers up and down the land to treat staff like disposable labour.’
A spokesman for P&O Ferries said: ‘This has been an incredibly tough decision for the business: to make this choice or face taking the company into administration. This would have meant the loss of 3,000 jobs and the end of P&O Ferries.
‘In making this hard choice, we have guaranteed the future viability of P&O Ferries, avoided large-scale and lengthy disruption, and secured Britain’s trading capacity.’
The company said that, subject to the settlement agreement, it would pay 2.5 weeks uncapped salary for each year employed, rather than the statutory one or 1.5 weeks. It is also offering 13 weeks salary in lieu of notice, and 13 weeks salary on top of this in absence of consultation.
But Mick Lynch, general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT), said that ‘the pay in lieu of notice is not compensation’.
‘It is just a payment staff are contractually entitled to as there was no notice given,’ he said.
‘The way that the package has been structured is pure blackmail and threats – that if staff do not sign up and give away their jobs and their legal right to take the company to an employment tribunal, they will receive a fraction of the amount put to them.
‘The actions of P&O demonstrate the weakness of employment law and protections in the UK. P&O have flagrantly breached the law and abandoned any standards of workplace decency.
‘They have ripped away the jobs, careers and pensions of our members and thrown them on the dole with the threat that if they do not sign up and give away their rights they will lose many thousands of pounds in payments.’
Last week, Mr Kwarteng wrote to Mr Hebblethwaite to say P&O Ferries had ‘lost the trust of the public’ and ‘given business a bad name’.
A P&O ferry called Pride of Canterbury at the port in Dover, Britain, March 18, 2022
New P&O staff members during safety training at the Port of Dover in Kent after the ferry giant handed 800 seafarers immediate severance notices last week and services remain suspended, March 21, 2022
P&O Ferries staff protesting in Dover, Britain on March 18, 2022 after the mass sacking of 800 seafarers
Why do staff think employment law may have been breached?
Employment law states bosses have to consult during a statutory notice period before they can make people redundant.
It is this lack of consultation that has led trade unions to think that P&O’s actions could have been unlawful.
Rustom Tata, chairman and head of the employment group at law firm DMH Stallard, said: ‘For those staff who have been, or are about to be dismissed, they will certainly have claims for unfair dismissal,’
The law also says businesses who want to make over 100 redundancies have to tell the government 45 days before it happens.
This is a breach of the Trade Union & Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.
P&O have sent redundancy letters with offers of enhanced compensation.
Some have taken this as a signal the company realise it could have handled the process better.
A BEIS spokesman said on Tuesday: ‘We have received a response to the Business Secretary’s letter to P&O and are reviewing their explanations.
‘We will continue to work at speed with the Insolvency Service to consider if legal action is required and will provide an update as soon as possible.
‘Given recent reports of staff being paid below the national minimum wage, the Business Secretary has also asked the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate to investigate the terms of agency workers’ contracts.’
It has also emerged that Mr Hebblethwaite lives in a plush Cotswold farmhouse worth more than £1.5million. Land Registry records show he and his wife Honor, an interior designer, paid £1.575million for their farmhouse in 2019.
A sales brochure for the Victorian property describes it as ‘an imposing detached family house offering extensive accommodation, including a heated swimming pool and stables set in approximately six acres’.
The property, close to Cirencester, Gloucestershire, boasts five double bedrooms, a double-aspect study and mature gardens and grounds.
Mr Hebblethwaite’s salary is not known but it is believed to be six figures. He took over as chief executive on an interim basis last year.
It comes as the Government threatened to criminally prosecute and impose unlimited fines on P&O Ferries if the disgraced operator is found to have broken labour laws.
Business Minister Paul Scully told the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme: ‘If they have flouted the notification law where they are supposed to tell the Secretary of State when they are going to make more than a hundred people redundant, then there are criminal sanctions involved in that, including an unlimited fine.
‘We have reserved the right to approach the prosecuting authorities should that be the right thing to do.’
Mr Scully said Transport Secretary Grant Shapps was reviewing all Government contracts and dealings with the company and its owners, DP World, adding: ‘They need to realise that the relationship between the companies and the Government has changed as a result of their absolutely callous [conduct]’.
Asked if that could include a £25million subsidy to DP World to help develop London Gateway as a freeport, he replied: ‘We will look into all of these things as part of this.’
Tory politicians are demanding that the Government consider scrapping its relationship with DP World, with Conservative peer Baroness Roz Altman telling the Today programme: ‘I think what P&O Ferries have done is absolutely disgraceful.
‘I feel so sorry for those 800 seamen who were loyal to P&O who were sacked by video, escorted of their ships, no warning, and I think that the Government should think very carefully about forcing the employer to behave better, and if that means that they have to impose any kind of sanctions or warnings to them, I think that would be entirely appropriate.’
P&O Ferries has replaced the 800 sacked staff with £1.82-an-hour foreign agency workers from India, the Phillipines and war-hit Ukraine.
Plush & Opulent: Boss of P&O Ferries who sacked 800 staff at once owns sprawling £1.5million farmhouse
The millionaire boss of P&O Ferries lives in a plush Cotswold farmhouse worth more than £1.5million, the Daily Mail can today reveal.
Peter Hebblethwaite, chief executive at the ferry company which on Thursday fired 800 crew on the spot to replace them with cheaper agency workers, defended an earlier round of sackings by declaring ‘only the fittest survive’.
Land Registry records show Mr Hebblethwaite, 51, and his wife Honor, an interior designer, paid £1.575million for their farmhouse in 2019.
P&O CEO Peter Hebblethwaite, who sacked 800 workers in one go, is the owner of a large farmhouse worth £1.5million
Mr Hebblewaite lives in the expensive mansion in Gloucestershire with his interior designer wife Honor
People have held protests outside the P&O offices (pictured),after hundreds of people were let go from their jobs with immediate effect
A sales brochure for the Victorian property describes it as ‘an imposing detached family house offering extensive accommodation, including a heated swimming pool and stables set in approximately six acres’.
The property, close to Cirencester, Gloucestershire, boasts five double bedrooms, a double-aspect study and mature gardens and grounds.
Mr Hebblethwaite’s salary is not known but it is believed to be six figures. He took over as chief executive on an interim basis last year.
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