Seething anger at P&O sackings continues
Workers’ mobilisation needed to save jobs
Rob Williams, Socialist Party trade union and workplace organiser
The chant “Seize the ships!” has rung out again in the last few days on protests in Hull, Dover, Larne, Liverpool, Cairnryan and Glasgow, organised by the RMT and Nautilus International unions in support of the sacked P&O workers.
The protests were the biggest yet, as workers and supporting members of other unions reacted with fury at the brazen words of P&O CEO Peter Hebblethwaite, who admitted that the company broke the law because “no union could accept our proposals”. As when notorious convicted wealthy tax evader Leona Helmsley was once heard saying: “Only the little people pay taxes”, workers will now draw the conclusion that laws only apply to us, not the bosses and the rich!
Hebblethwaite’s comments were even too blunt for Boris Johnson and transport minister Grant Shapps, who have called on him to resign. However, it won’t be lost on ordinary people that the Covid rules were flouted by many in Johnson’s clique.
But it will be no consolation for the sacked workers to replace one brutal boss with another. All P&O ferries and ships should be immediately impounded and the workers reinstated to their jobs on their agreed pay, terms and conditions.
The pressure is building on the Tories as the outrage increases. Moreover, the government’s Maritime and Coastguard Agency has now had to impound two P&O ships because of concerns about their safety, given the brand-new crews and safety equipment and procedures. This shows the crucial role that the unions play in upholding safety.
When dismissing the workers, P&O management tried to justify their vicious actions by arguing that the company couldn’t survive by paying workers their contracted pay. They then employed, or rather super-exploited, workers on less than £2 an hour, a fifth of the minimum wage – a practice shamefully common place in the industry.
In an unprecedented step, Shapps has now written to senior P&O management demanding that the workers are reinstated on their current terms. His letter implies that if P&O don’t step back, new crews will have to be paid at least the national minimum wage. But this outcome would still be unacceptable, as new workers would be on less than the sacked workers.
If P&O or its parent company DP World claim that they can’t make a go of the business on the basis of paying workers their previously existing wage, the books of both companies should be opened and inspected by the workers and their unions.
To defend the jobs on their agreed contracts, and the communities in which the workers live and work, P&O should be nationalised and taken into public ownership under democratic workers’ management and control. The same goes for other ferry operators super-exploiting workers.
Trades Union Congress (TUC) general secretary Frances O’Grady posted an article in the Financial Times, ‘P&O abuses expose the UK’s embrace of cowboy capitalism’. In it, she correctly details the litany of company abuses of which P&O’s is just the latest.
Brutal capitalism
But the search for the ‘good employer’ is increasingly in vain. Covid has merely brought centre stage the brutal character of capitalism, which is becoming the ‘new normal’. Unite the Union has alone estimated that 10% of its members have been affected by ‘fire and rehire’. P&O has given an even more vicious twist to this practise. How many companies will now look to see if they too can emulate P&O if they get away with it?
But the response of too many of the union leaders in the depth of the pandemic was to capitulate to an illusory national unity with the bosses and the Tory government. In September 2020, O’Grady stood with Chancellor Rishi Sunak and the head of the employer federation CBI when the Tories were going to water down furlough, a step that they had to retreat from given the threat to the economy and the likely backlash from workers.
However, workers have fought, in a growing strike wave, both against the fire-and-rehire offensive and to demand above-inflation pay rises to keep their heads above water. It’s workers’ action that has challenged P&O, with Dutch dockers refusing to load ships, but more is needed now as the fight is at a crucial point.
The best way to support the sacked workers and their unions would be for the TUC to call a national demonstration at one or all of the ports in the next week, to mobilise thousands to blockade the ports. This would send a mighty message to P&O, DP World and the Tories behind them that the fight is still on and the sackings must be stopped.
Hundreds at Cairnryan protest
A major demonstration at Cairnryan took place on March 23rd along with protests at Hull, Dover, Larne and Liverpool ports as part of the Save Our Seafarers campaign against the P&O mass sackings. Scottish TUSC and Socialist Party Scotland were there in solidarity.
RMT and Nautilus members on the Irish sea crossing were brutally sacked and threatened wth private security but bravely resisted leaving vessels. The Scottish press have reported some agency workers brought in to replace existing crew, refused to board at Cairnryan as they “felt like they were crossing a picket line”. This shows the importance of the impact of the trade union’s direct action and a class appeal to workers exploited by the bosses to undermine the trade unions.
Local ferry workers, their families and the local trades council were joined by trade unionists from across the country. After a protest at the terminal gates we marched on the P&O offices.
Gordan Martin, RMT Scottish regional organiser, addressed the demonstration and the press raising this was a brutal attack, bandit capitalism, on hard working members, the local community and the entire industry. The redundancy offer from the company amounts to blackmail and the RMT are not in the business of selling jobs. Gordon demanded the reinstatement of all members, intervention by the Tory government in Westminster to seize vessels and change employment law and for a mass boycott of P&O and mass blockades if ships tried to sail out to sea.
Mickey Smyth Nautlius National Ferry Organiser spoke on how he had worked for the company for decades and had never seen anything like this, what these workers went through with the shock of being sacked by zoom was horrific how low can P&O go? Our members must be reinstated.
Local SNP and Scottish Labour MSP’s spoke and gave support to the campaign. Of Course, the weakness of UK employment law is not only the Tories responsibility but also New Labour. The SNP government will also come under pressure over their “Green ports” policy which is launched alongside Tory free ports. What is to stop Scottish based firms acting the same way?
Importantly on the 25th March the RMT demonstrated at Oban ferry terminal demanding the CALMAC Scottish island ferries stay under public ownership and are properly invested in.
Dave Moxham Deputy General Secretary of the STUC spoke saying they would join and support any blockades. The Socialist Party Scotland leaflet which was well received called on the TUC/STUC to mobilise all affiliates to mass emergency demonstrations at ports if needed to defy the anti-trade union laws.
Ian Kerr, Socialist Party Scotland activist spoke on behalf of Disabled People Against Cuts calling for the seizing of the ships and nationalisation of the entire industry under workers control.
Report by Matt Dobson
Scrap freeports: No government cash to P&O owners
News that DP World, owners of P&O Ferries, are set to pocket £50 million in government funding has added to the enormous anger of sacked seafarers and RMT members. Under the Tories’ flagship levelling-up scheme, Freeports have been reintroduced, avowedly to create jobs.
DP World runs Thames Gateway and Southampton docks, the second and third largest ports in the country. The government says funding is for infrastructure investment but, in reality, it is a subsidy to big business. DP World is a UAE state-owned company with a turnover of £8.2 billion in 2020. Hardly short of a few quid for investment!
Now, linked to the mass sackings at P&O, this hugely undermines any credibility in the Freeports initiative. Under the enormous pressure of events, DP World’s UK commercial director has been forced to resign from Solent Freeport’s board. Further evidence the Tories are desperately trying to salvage their discredited project.
At the time of its announcement, the RMT and Unite unions were quick to oppose the scheme as ‘sinkholes’, warning deregulation would lead to attacks on jobs and conditions in the drive to profits. DP World’s action at P&O has demonstrated just that.
P&O’s mass sackings show workers can have no confidence in capitalism to ensure secure jobs and decent wages. As P&O seafarers have chanted: “Seize the ships!” This is the only way to protect jobs and services, the trade unions must come out firmly and oppose the Freeport scheme, and instead call for the renationalistaion of the docks and the restoration of secure employment with decent pay and conditions for all.
Nick Chaffey, Southampton Socialist Party
