The Industrial Relations Thread

Discussion in 'Politics 2.0' started by Moose, Mar 17, 2022.

  1. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Widely reported that UAE owned (no UAE, not UEA) P&O Ferries has just sacked all of its onboard staff and plans to replace them with crews from abroad. All sailings were cancelled.

    Workers have zero effective rights it appears. What a Country.

    Hang on, wasn’t Bunter in Dubai just yesterday?

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  2. HenryHooter

    HenryHooter Reservist

    Now, why was Bunter in Dubai yesterday? Oh yeah, Putin is still in Ukraine and threatening to start a nuclear war.

    It's a crap situation. It has to be handled in unfortunate ways. I suppose that at least Bunter is attempting to find alternative sources, so that our purchases do not help fund armagedon, like Germany, Italy, etc., find themselves doing.

    Perhaps it would be better if we waited until the end of the year to do something? Like Germany, Italy, etc..
     
    iamofwfc likes this.
  3. Unbelievable. Hope they stand united.
     
    Moose likes this.
  4. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn Squad Player

    There are rumours of naval (RN and/or MN) personnel being called back to base on ARRSE and this has popped up:

     
  5. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    It’s still against UK law.

    ‘Redundancy is when you dismiss an employee because you no longer need anyone to do their job. This might be because your business is:
    • changing what it does
    • doing things in a different way, for example using new machinery
    • changing location or closing down
    For a redundancy to be genuine, you must demonstrate that the employee’s job will no longer exist.’

    https://www.gov.uk/staff-redundant
     
  6. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

  7. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    "This isn't the Brexit I voted for" echoed sadly around the halls as staff were escorted out by balaclava wearing thugs.
     
  8. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    There is a real challenge for Tory Brexit here.

    What does it mean to ‘take back control’ if British workers can lose their livelihoods in an instant, without the law being followed, because of decisions made thousands of miles away?
     
    sydney_horn likes this.
  9. V Crabro

    V Crabro Reservist

    Say what you like about the French, but I am sure an employer would not have contemplated a stunt like this on the other side of the Channel
     
  10. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Hopefully we’ll see some French style industrial action and hopefully people will refuse to use P&O in the future.
     
  11. EnjoytheGame

    EnjoytheGame Reservist

    Absolutely appalling for the employees, and despicable by the company and the foot soldiers who carried it out and who are no doubt tonight congratulating themselves on getting the job done as clinically as possible. Little do they realise that if the rank and file workers can be treated like that today the middle and upper management can be treated like it tomorrow. Unless someone is able to stand up for the employees this will set a precedent.

    So much to unpick here. A Dubai-owned company able to sack people working in British waters with no notice whatsoever and replace them with cheaper, most likely foreign workers. Not really the Global Britain we were promised is it. I know the pro-Brexiters will roll their eyes and bemoan any link being made between this and Brexit but this is precisely what Brexit was about. Weakening workers' rights and making it easier to sack people and reduce wages. This is precisely what they meant by cutting red tape and regulations. This is what the unrestricted free market looks like.

    Of course P&O has got through the pandemic in bad shape (and with plenty of help from the British taxpayer because P&O Ferries furloughed 1,100 employees, it should be pointed out). But the reduction in cross-channel trade as a result of Brexit is undoubtedly a factor too.
     
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  12. miked2006

    miked2006 Premiership Prediction League Proprietor

    In most industrial disputes, I tend to side against the unions 99% of the time.

    Either I’m getting soft, or this really stinks.

    Puts Boris in a very tough position. Go against blue collar workers, or against countries which are rich in oil.
     
    wfcmoog likes this.
  13. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    The Tories voted against a proposal to end ‘hire and fire’. So they don’t appear to be in a very tough position at all, this is the state of affairs they have created.

    We need stronger, not more timid, unions. We’ll miss them when they are gone.
     
  14. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    An employment lawyer on the radio earlier while I was driving home from work said it’s basically bent as it’s possible to be bent. And yet, P&O have on paper put a decent financial incentive in front of their former employees for their breaches of employment law. Essentially asking them to decide if they want jam now or to get maybe more jam later but with added tribunal legal costs.
     
  15. HenryHooter

    HenryHooter Reservist

    And tumbleweeds blew across Arakel's living room as he went on to read Moose's post above.
    :D
     
  16. HenryHooter

    HenryHooter Reservist

    I am laughing at this very loudly. For someone who came onto the thread with such a high and mighty 'I am the balanced and unbiased view of the people and can see through propaganda like it is glass' view of themself, you sure are repeating some of the most biased and ill informed opinions.

    Tell me how this has been enabled by Brexit?

    UK law protects these workers from the effects of what has happened, though it cannot protect them from the gross stupidity and unfairness of their employer.

    As far as I understand, our laws remain parallel with EU laws on this. But if you never understood how EU law was adopted as UK law, and may only be changed through an act of Parliament, rather than by simply leaving the EU, I guess someone might think the way you do.
     
    Last edited: Mar 18, 2022
    iamofwfc likes this.
  17. HenryHooter

    HenryHooter Reservist



    Good words from all sides of Parliament.

    Let the W(TS)UMs prattle on and make hay, whilst the rest of us wait for an assessment of the full situation, and look forward to action from Boris's government.
     
  18. EnjoytheGame

    EnjoytheGame Reservist

    P&O Ferries is owned by DP World, which is (ultimately through another parent company) owned by the UAE state. DP World is a big investor in the Thames Gateway Freeport and is expected to tender for other Freeports in the UK. Freeports are one of the supposed big benefits of Brexit (despite having been perfectly possible to create while inside the EU, although the EU wanted to clamp down because they are attractive to tax evaders and money launderers).

    The most curious two aspects to all this are that P&O Ferries’ French, Dutch, Irish and other European employees are unaffected, it’s only the British made redundant at the drop of a hat. And secondly, how did an entire replacement overseas workforce get visas in time, or do they not need them?
     
    Moose likes this.
  19. wfcmoog

    wfcmoog Tinpot

    Same here. Are we the exceptions that prove the rule? You're supposed to get more right wing as you age and I'm here siding with the workers and the unions.
     
    miked2006 likes this.
  20. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Your use of the word ‘decent’ needs unpicking here. I don’t know the details, but it can’t be that decent or this won’t make financial sense to the employer.

    Some staff may get a lump sum now and that’s nice and they may even rejoin, but over the longer term they have lost terms and conditions, breaks, maybe pension contributions, annual leave, sick pay. Jobs are also devalued going forwards.

    It’s a race to the bottom and it doesn’t happen to the professional classes. They wouldn’t stand for it. Do we want two tiers in society, well paid and supported professionals and everyone else is employed at arms length, on as little as possible topped up by universal credit?
     
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  21. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    ‘Decent’ as in, more than they could ever hope to be awarded normally by the ET and with far less hassle. That’s not to say fair, acceptable or in the spirit of the law.

    I think they’ve been offered 2.5 weeks pay for each year of service (up to a maximum of 91 weeks) and 3 months pay in lieu of notice.
     
  22. EnjoytheGame

    EnjoytheGame Reservist

    It always surprises me how many people in the middle are happy to see the rights and conditions of those lower down the chain eroded, possibly in the belief that they are immune to the consequences and feel that the same thing won't happen to them.

    Situations like this always make me ponder the point of work, and therefore, life. Workers in all sorts of industries are seeing their rights and security removed and we have been seduced into accepting the ultra-libertarian version of what work is. We are 'owned' by those who pay us. Those who pay us set *all* the terms and conditions. And the money paid covers only the time you punch in and out. The companies and shareholders extract maximum value while pleading poverty.

    Work should be either decently-paid, relatively secure, offering employees a chance to build futures for themselves and their families and provide for some sort of retirement or it should be flexible, enjoyable and fulfilling – and preferably it should be all of those things. But for some, that notion is some kind of away-with-the-fairies, snowflakey nonsense.

    The P&O Ferries story is broken western-style economics in a nutshell. A company 'losing' £100m last year owned by a company that made £475m in the same period. We're encouraged to see P&O as a failure that's been through tough times and see that as justification for this action.
     
    Arakel, Since63, Moose and 2 others like this.
  23. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Those are quite precise terms for you to ‘think’. Presumably this has been reported?

    91 weeks would seem to make a bit of a pot, if you’ve been there 36.4 years, but unless you are close to retirement it all goes quickly. Essentially, most will have to rejoin on lower pay and conditions or find a new career (there may be a few jobs with rivals).
     
  24. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    It was on the same BBC radio programme yesterday afternoon. I only 'think' because it's from memory. Do your own homework etc etc. I imagine it's out there somewhere.
     
    Moose likes this.
  25. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    I’ll let you off this time, but in future please use iirc.
     
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  26. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn Squad Player

    ISTR that employment of 'seafarers' actually has its own 'law' very different to UK employment law/rights.
     
  27. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Ha haar! Ye carn’t be yavin the same larws fur salty sea dogs and land lubbers alike!

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  28. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn Squad Player

    It was to 'simplify' the effects of having British crews, on say Dubai owned boats which are flagged as Panamanian sailing/working in international waters. I do know that a mate who worked for a number of years on the Plymouth-Santander boats had 'major' issues with HMRC when he 'returned' to the UK to work.

    I *think* that it's just the workers on the boats who are employed 'offshore'. P&O's 'onshore' staff are unaffected?

    If, and if, it's Brexit related then that's going to be fun for the RMT Union to support its members who've been affected by this disgusting act....
     
  29. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    It’s Brexit related inasmuch as,

    Brexit is the shyte show that enabled the failing Tory Party to become re-elected. They then passed on the opportunity to outlaw this sort of behaviour, which isn’t itself EU law, but most member countries do not permit it.

    Brexit has clearly hit the Ferry business.

    It asks the question of what ‘taking back control’ means.

    I disagree with the RMT tankies on Brexit, but they get to have a view and it probably wasn’t out of step with their members.
     
  30. Keighley

    Keighley First Team

    Not as much as the pandemic.

    As I understand it (not my field) this doesn't seem to be legal under UK law either so I am not sure what the point about 'outlawing it' means?
     
  31. HenryHooter

    HenryHooter Reservist

    Explains why everything is Brexit. Mind you, doesn't that also suggest that everything bad since joining the EEC, including Brexit, is down to the EEC/EU, including every Labour election loss, which, personally, I would have put down to them being unelectable sheit.
     
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  32. sydney_horn

    sydney_horn Squad Player

    I can't see any direct link to Brexit although I do accept @Moose's point that the economic impact, along with Covid, on EU/UK trade is bound to have been a negative on P&O's bottom line.

    The whole legal aspect does seem to be a bit cloudy but an expert on employment law on the radio did believe this action was illegal.

    The point she made was the whole compensation process through the courts could be costly, time consuming and not guaranteed.

    She felt that P&O was gambling on most, if not all, accepting the "generous" compensation on offer now rather than going down the legal route.

    I guess we shall see....
     
  33. HenryHooter

    HenryHooter Reservist

    ??

    It'll be interesting if, and if, it has got anything to do with Starmer not knowing what a woman is, blah blah blah.

    Or imagine if it had anything to do with secret alien technology, and the kidnapping of Earth men to help repopulate the planet of Youranus.
     
  34. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    ‘Fire and rehire’ is legal. I think the provisions of the law relate to matters of redundancy etc.

    The recent bill the Tories opposed sought to apply a statutory framework to it. As has been noted, there is legal redress available for individuals, but that is time consuming and costly. Legislation would put the onus on the company.

    It’s a ****** thing to do, unless a company is really about to collapse. But usually the companies involved are not, in fact are mostly still in profit.
     
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