Outrage over P&O Ferries workers sacked on zoom Company dumps 800 UK seafarers with plans to replace them with cheaper agency workers
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“Workers around the world are defiant in opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.” PADDY CRUMLIN
Paddy Crumlin said the MUA has a proud history of taking principled stands against global injustices. “Our rank-andfile membership are custodians of a long tradition of internationalism and campaigning for peace and justice,” he said. Australian seafarers and waterside workers have fought for the sovereign rights of Indonesia and Vietnam. They acted against apartheid in South Africa – the importance of which was recognised by Nelson Mandela at his meeting with MUA officials in Australia. In more recent years, support from Australian seafaring members of the MUA for the East Timorese was recognised as strategically significant by retired General Sir Peter Cosgrove. Trade unionists and Maritime Union members have always been at the forefront of peace and international justice campaigns and nuclear non-proliferation efforts. The 1938 Dalfram dispute saw Australian waterfront labourers refuse to load pig iron bound for Japan during its invasion of China in the prelude to World War II. One in eight Australian merchant seafarers lost their lives in service to the nation while working on transport, supply and hospital ships around Australia’s coast in that war. • www.mua.org.au
&O Ferries told its 800 seafaring staff in the United Kingdom via a video call that Thursday March 17 was their “final day of employment”. Some refused to leave their ships in protest and were removed by security guards. P&O said it would “not be a viable business” without replacing the workers with agency casuals but the British government called the workers’ treatment “wholly unacceptable”. The RMT union threatened legal action against P&O and urged the government to withdraw any support for P&O owners DP World, including future contracts, until the jobs are reinstated. RMT also called for a public and commercial boycott of P&O. The Maritime Union of Australia said the sackings were a “callous and unprincipled” act by a company which, despite benefiting from significant government subsidies, aimed to replace its entire workforce with agency-sourced casual labour on lower pay, and with lower training and safety standards. “The company is MUA National Secretary, brazenly thumbing its Paddy Crumlin, who is also the president of the nose at the very community International Transport which supported it with Workers Federation, called on massive sums of P&O’s majority shareholder, DP World, to examine P&O taxpayers’ money.” senior management failures that PADDY CRUMLIN had put the company in a position where it could only remain profitable by sacking its entire seafaring staff. “If DP World won’t act to prevent this as the majority shareholder, the UK government must, because a company that conducts business this way does so without any social licence,” Crumlin said. P&O Ferries received £33 million in government subsidies during the COVID pandemic. “Rather than being grateful for the corporate welfare which sustained it during COVID, the company is brazenly thumbing its nose at the very community which supported it with massive sums of taxpayers’ money,” Crumlin said. He pointed out that a global supply chain crunch has already caused massive economic and social upheaval. “On top of this, the actions of P&O Ferries will cause tremendous delays throughout Europe, with a suspension of at least 10 days on the UK – France and Irish Sea routes causing a ripple effect throughout continental Europe that will take months to overcome.” “Not only will this ruin the lives of 800 hardworking seafarers, this act of social and economic vandalism will disrupt hundreds of thousands of people and businesses for months to come at a time when the global economy can least handle it,” Crumlin said. •
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