The fight for the dismissed P&O Ferries’ employees to win back their jobs moved up a gear this weekend with demonstrations held in the UK and beyond.

Unions rallied at Hull, Liverpool, Dover, and at the P&O Ferry terminal in Cairnryan, Dumfries and Galloway, with protestors calling for the company’s boss to quit.

The protests were organised by the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union, which is urging for an end to what it refers to the “P&O jobs massacre.”

P&O Ferry detained in Northern Ireland

Chanting slogans such as “seize the ship”, the demonstrations came after a ship operated by P&O Ferries was detained on Friday for being “unfit to sail.” The ferry was detained by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency in Northern Ireland over apparent “failures on crew familiarisation, vessel documentation and crew training.”

A spokesperson for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency said: “We can confirm that the European Causeway has been detained in Larne. It has been detained due to failures on crew familiarisation, vessel documentation and crew training.

Unions warned that crews without experience of the vessels are a danger to shipping.

In Hull, protestors from RMT called for customers to boycott the company and attempted to block access to P&O ferry Pride of Rotterdam at the city’s King George Dock.

‘P&O shame on you’

In Liverpool, over 100 protestors gathered, marching to chants of “P&O, shame on you.” Similar scenes took place in Dover, where crowds carried placards calling for an end to the “P&O jobs carve up.”

Support for the sacked members of staff extended beyond Britain, with P&O dockers in Rotterdam refusing to load freight onto a ferry set for Hull, in “solidarity with the 800 seafarers illegally sacked by P&O.”

In Dublin, a rally organised by the Irish trade union Siptu, took place outside the P&O terminal to send support to the dismissed employees. The demonstration was attended by Ivana Bacik, the new Irish Labour Party leader and organiser Jim McVeigh, who said: “The best thing we could do was to have a rally at Dublin Port outside P&O so they know our concerns.”

RMT launches campaign against P&O’s supply chain

The RMT Union has also launched a campaign against P&O’s supply chain. In a statement issued on March 25, the union said it will be targeting P&O’s supply chain as well as “any company complicit in P&O’s scandalous decision to dismiss all UK seafarers.”

On March 28, the union will be demonstrating outside the offices of Clyde Marine Recruitment, the agency responsible to recruiting the labour to replace some of the RMT union members on P&O’s routes.

RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said: “We are making it clear that there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide for those who have been complicit in the P&O jobs massacre. We will keep the pressure on at every opportunity until we get justice for the P&O workers

“We look forward to another good turnout on Monday and greatly appreciate the remarkable solidarity from our trade union colleagues in this dispute.‎”‎

Hebblethwaite admits to breaking the law

The demonstrations come after a chaotic and controversial week involving the P&O Ferries’ scandal that saw the company’s chief executive, Peter Hebblethwaite admit to a panel of MPs that the firm knowingly broke the law by sacking the workers but would do it again.

Hebblethwaite, who earns a basic annual salary is £325,000, revealed that the average hourly pay for new crew is just £5.50. The minimum wage in the UK for people aged 23 and over is £8.91 an hour.

The same week saw – unsurprisingly – Nigel Farage enter the discussion, reviving an incident from 2005, when Irish Ferries asked 543 of its staff to take voluntary redundancy and were replaced with cheaper foreign workers.

Talking live on GB News, the former Brexit Party leader said: “It’s perfectly clear that under UK employment law he [P&O chief executive] should have consulted with the union, he didn’t and it’s done. 

“This happened to Irish ferry companies back in 2005 when Irish workers were sacked and replaced by cheap foreign labour.

“We need to do something to honour the pledge to the British people under the Brexit vote that this cannot go on,” Farage continued.

The comments were made as Farage called for the Brexit vote ‘to be honoured’, adding – in typical antagonistic fashion – “The idea that Brexit Britain (that) British workers should be undercut in this way by foreign workers is a disgrace.”

The GB News presenter – who doesn’t hold back in this prime-time show – failed to elaborate on how current law in Ireland means a similar situation cannot happen again.

Mass sacking ‘would not happen under current Irish/EU law’

In response to the P&O Ferries’ sackings of around 800 employees, which included at least 60 workers from Ireland – 25 from the Republic and 35 from the North –  Leo Varadkar, an Irish Fine Gael politician who is serving as Tánaiste and minister for enterprise, trade and employment, said such a mass sacking would not happen under current Irish/EU law as there is a transfer of undertakings in Ireland which means new workers have to get the same terms and conditions as the old ones.

Meanwhile, transport secretary Grant Shapps, has said the government is planning to change the law to ensure companies working from UK ports pay employees the minimum wage. Shapps said the move from the government would force a “U-turn on what’s happened at P&O.”

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is a contributing editor to Left Foot Forward

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