Absolutely shocking . How some people still say unions are too strong and that they need to be curbed is beyond me.

Although I did notice that French P& O workers were not sacked. I guess they must be on lower wages .

Then realised that they weren’t it seems that by being in the EU French workers and ports are part of the EU port services regulation.



This regulation was ended earlier this year by Boris Johnson in the benefits of Brexit comments para 75 where the regulation was described as an “onerous piece of red tape that needed to be repealed to improve Britains competitiveness “

Looks like Brexit was about getting rid of red tape that allowed big business to race to the bottom in terms of workers rights

This terrible action will soon be forgotten as customers looking for a cheap sailing pile in. Has the way BA treated its staff discouraged many from using them - not really. Until customers start voting with their feet nothing will change.

Money losing business's don't work.

Yes maybe they should have shown more compassion,(I'm unsure if employment law has been broken) but 'overpaying' staff (like BA were doing comparatively to competitors like Ryanair, EJ etc)) just doesn't work.

I worked in the tech industry for a silicone valley company and each year they would chop 10% of the global workforce, in accordance with local employment law. Yes you get a period of time to 'negotiate' but ultimately you lose your job. Capitalism hey.

The following does not look like a money losing business to me?

P&O claimed £10million furlough cash in same year it paid bosses £270million dividends. The billionaires behind troubled ferry giant P&O received £270million in dividends in the same year it claimed £10million in tax payer cash to pay staff on furlough

A company can still pay substantial dividends and be a “losing business”

Was this just something that happened or a policy that they applied consistently? Putting myself in the shoes of the capitalist, rather than the worker, the latter would seem a bit rigid and dumb.

It was quite odd to be fair. They gave it a project name each year, all kept very quiet with HR and business leaders.

The lower performers, and those in parts of the business that were deemed unnecessary as they reshaped the 'dynamic' organisation were let go, typically in Jan the start of the US Tax year. In USA that's pretty instant as there is limited employment law there. The tech industry has a very 'pleasant' facade but behind it, it's a ruthless working environment.

Doing it ‘dynamically’ at least makes sense, and allows for adaptation to changing circumstances. I don’t mind ruthless so much as stupid, and the next, younger generation of workers understand how it all works (and sometimes fails) as they’ve never known a different ethos.

There was an interesting thing I saw the other day about the poor pay and low retention of the big, famous consultancy firms’ graduate training programmes. The company gets cheap labour from bright, energetic young workers and they get to burnish their CV to apply for a better job with a less famous company… a bit like a post-graduate qualification in some ways. All very transactional, and that doesn’t offend me at all. It is the pleasant facades that you mention, that annoy me - it just seems easier to me to be honest.

This company's problems are rooted in bad management. They operate in markets where their main competitors - Stena Line and DFDS - are much more strategically run, invest a lot more in their operations AND pay their staff more.

P&O Ferries, its investment company ownership, its appalling treatment of UK workers and its obsession with short-termism in an industry which resolutely requires long term investment and vision are the absolute poster boys for so much of Britain's failed capitalism.

When taken over by the Emiratis they could have been classed as a critical piece of our national infrastructure. But they were just another British company sold overseas. Their new owners were looking for a quick buck and a nicely profitable company like this were just the ticket - either to milk for a few years or to pump the profits and sell onwards at a healthy margin. Hence the cuts we've seen that led to them being where they are now - cuts in investment, in maintenance, in service standards, in employee costs. And of course they flagged their ships out after Brexit as did so many shipowners.

But this is an industry which doesn't reward such quick buck-seeking. If you don't invest in new ships you get caught out in high operational costs, compounded if your rivals have super - efficient vessels which meet the latest emissions criteria. And if your service standards drop year after year, if the rust becomes just too obvious, passengers gradually begin to switch to your rivals.

But the cycle of doom at P&O Ferries stretches back long before this latest piece of opportunism. The BBC will tell you that this affects four routes - they do still have a couple more freight only ones. But in the past 25 years this company has closed no less than sixteen yes SIXTEEN other routes. They've cut and cut and cut. Even before this latest sham thousands of British jobs have been lost as this company incompetently failed to do anything right - and as better run, proper shipowning companies moved in with their long-term investments and proper plans for the future.

It's a damning indictment of a country whose economy is littered with big companies like this. Companies who live on a famous trading name but who are now utterly untethered from this country and whose owners owe employees here no loyalty. Those owners are interested only in pumping short term profits to try and sell the company on for more than they bought it. And in certain industries which are natural or factual monopolies or oligopolies we let them do what they like. Drive down standards, slash costs, slash jobs with nothing done because as a country all we now know is the price of everything and the value of nothing.

I wonder if de Pfeffel just panicked with his statement that the government would take P&O to court. I guess time will tell but based on form nothing will happen.