What's happening with P&O ferries

[happy daze john in oz]

You could well be correct about the Union bit.

Some years ago here we a had company always with union problems.
Company shut down and claimed bankrupt.

Began again under another name paying the creditors from the previous name, wrote to employees they wanted back offering them jobs.
Not one union rep got such a letter.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

John.
But I bet the ones who went back took all the benefits the unions had struggled to get, plus the Super. As you know wages haven't moved in Aus for nigh on ten years, but prices have.
Des

[happy daze john in oz]

Correct Des, they all take the benefits.
Wages have remained sluggish for some time now, but any one in the public service of any kind including MP get some very big annual ones.
Poor bloody police, nurses and ambos have to fight for theirs.
Main reason for lopw growth is the fact thta now most workers are on enterprise agreements.

[j.sabourn]

I think whoever owns P & O will change their name. Myself I conjure up names to represent P & O now , and it’s not Pennsular and Oriental , more than likely P### O## springs to mind , others can put more subjective words may spring to mind to suit their unforgiving actions. However they are acting true to form as a lot of us learned the hard way , and the government also took similar action , as they were part of the villainy in any case.If and only if the general public refuse to use their services will anything be done. JS

[vic mcclymont]

Post 56, Clyde Marine Recruitment have stated they knew nothing of P&O's plans to sack a complete workforce and replace with Agency workers, which they were hired to supply.
To me it looks like P&O are the using the scattergun approach, blame everyone else but themselves.
Vic

[Keith Tindell]

I see in Ireland the Marine safety people have stopped one ferry from leaving, over concerns of crew training. If P&O have some sort of emergency at sea, and cannot cope, that will be the end for them. Lets hope the main guy loses his job, the arrogant b******, kt

[Malcolm Lawrence]

As the Dover Ships are registered in Cyprus they don't have to follow UK Employment Law, however they do have to comply with UK Health & Safety, I wonder what a H&S Audit would find, skills, certification, handover procedures, language competence, statutory documentation compliance, training records etc etc etc

I reckon the Maritime & Coastguard Agency have been following this thread
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60881550

[j.sabourn]

I was on one foreign flag ship forget what flag it was , but had a very arrogant Yugoslav master. It was during a time of a lay up in the North Sea so went back deep sea for a trip to keep a roof above our head. We were in one of the Southern Ireland ports and one of the Irish Marine Safety people came to see me and asked if I could state any missing safety factors on the ship. He said to me in passing if he had his way he would have the master of the ship removed as thought He was incompetent , but could not do this due to the flag of the ship.The only help at the time I could give him was the lack of commodities in the medicine cabinet and not being able to read their labels . He made this to be corrected . I could have well agreed with him as to the competence of the master , he later got sacked for just that and maybe the owners also received a letter from the same surveyor on his
behaviour , The same person would not have got away with the way he talked to officialdom the way he did. A British vessel he would have been there 5 minutes . There was no drink or substances in use so he could not
blame that, his ineptness was done fully sober . This followed him to every port we visited North and South America and the West Indies he left a string of abused agents and marine officialdom , and this was apart from his absolute ignorance of how a ship was managed and run. JS

[John Cassels]

Post 56, Clyde Marine Recruitment have stated they knew nothing of P&O's plans to sack a complete workforce and replace with Agency workers, which they were hired to supply.
To me it looks like P&O are the using the scattergun approach, blame everyone else but themselves.
Vic

If they were hired to supply agency workers then surely they must have had an inkling that something was in the wind ?.

[john walker]

I was looking up the registry of the P&O ferries and it looks like they were only registered under the Cypriot flag on February the 15th. The other ships seem to be registered in Bermuda and the Bahamas. Apparently Under all 3 flag states the seafarers are entitled to a minimum of 45 days notice about redundancies. The Dutch unions appear to be acting in a sympathetic way to the dispute, whether this is because there are Dutch crew on some of the ships or in union solidarity I have no idea . The French unions who normally blockade or disrupt anything they dislike at the drop of a hat appear to be remarkable quiet. I can well believe that the company 'kept its cards close to its chest' when approaching crewing agencies for staff. If as mentioned Clyde Marine were used to find staff at short notice especially the amount involved then they must be blinkered or indifferent to not realise that something was happening that was not the norm.
One other question in my mind is that I thought that all crew working on ships in home trade/short sea routes had to come from within the Schengen areas of Europe or be of the nation of registry or to have permission to work within the EEC.