ONE of the 800 sacked P&O workers today emotionally revealed how staff thought they “had a job for life” with the company – only for the rug to be pulled for underneath them.
Speaking exclusively to GB News ahead of a demonstration in London, the worker also told how he was left devastated to be fired over Zoom despite giving 30 years’ service to the ferry firm.
And he said he now fears passengers’ safety will be put in peril.
The employee, called Lee, said: “I went straight from school, and then straight on to the ferries. We were told it was a job for life. I am a second generation seafarer, my father was a seafarer, and now the rug has been pulled from under us.
“We’ve been replaced by agency labour from Ukraine from Romania, from Poland and India on exploitative rates of pay, Indian seafarers on as low as $1,600 a month are now working eight weeks on eight weeks off. It’s not right.”
Talking about the moment he was fired, he said: “We received an email from the company to log on to a zoom and we thought it’d be an open meeting, instead it was a recorded message from the new HR director. They told us as of today we’re no longer employed, our contracts are terminated and we will be receiving a redundancy offer.
“The company carried out a fatigue study in 2013 which said a week, or two weeks on two weeks off, was not viable.”
Asked about safety with agency workers crewing the vessels, he said: “Well, it’s not going to be safe.
“We’ve got guys from Latvia that are training and aren’t experienced enough themselves.
He added: “The last thing we want – a few weeks ago I was at the 35th memorial of the Herald of Free Enterprise [disaster]. “The last thing this country needs is another maritime disaster. We need political support and political will to get all P&O’s ships impounded, to remove all government contracts from DP World and to get support for. myself and my colleagues.
“We’ve done nothing wrong, we’ve been sacked – for what? For being loyal and doing our jobs.
“This can’t be right”.
Lee’s comments came as protesters gathered outside DP World’s offices in Victoria in London ahead of marching to Westminster called for contracts it has with the government to be cancelled.
The Labour Party has called on the government to implement sanctions against the parent company of P&O Ferries in retaliation for the mass sacking of 800 workers.
In an interview with Alex Phillips on GBN, the Shadow defence minister Stephanie Peacock said: “There is a question about whether it is legal, we want the government to shine a light on that but we also want to make sure that this simply cannot happen again because it is absolutely outrageous.
“And we need to be clear that the government can take action.
“They can sanction the company and they can sanction the parent company, the Dubai-based parent company, that posted billions of pounds worth of profits in the last year.”
