Boris Johnson says layoffs could break law

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the government would “not stand idly by” in the face of P&O sacking sailors without notice during a video conference last week.

Johnson, who made the comments during Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, said the company may have broken the law by firing the crew members and could face multi-million fines. dollars if she did.

It comes as ferry operator P&O Ferries announced on Wednesday it would pay $US36.5 million ($48.3 million) in compensation to the 800 seafarers it laid off.

P&O offers two and a half weeks' pay for each year of employment, plus a maximum of 13 weeks' notice pay and an additional 13 weeks due to no consultation period.

Some crew members are expected to receive compensation of up to 170,000, while more than 40 employees are expected to receive more than 100,000 each, and no one will receive less than 15,000, the company said.

The compensation package formed the basis of the offers made to the crew members at the time of dismissal, he said. P&O said it believed the settlement was considered “the largest compensation package in the UK maritime sector”.

The company added that 575 of the 786 laid-off employees are in talks over severance packages and some are expected to receive 91 weeks of pay and the opportunity to find new employment.

However, unions representing crew members said the package was “pure blackmail and threats” and that “notice pay was not compensation”.

“If employees do not register and give up their jobs and their legal right to sue the company in an employment tribunal, they will receive a fraction of the amount allocated to them,” said the general secretary of the RMT union , Mick Lynch.

Learn more: P&O layoffs spark massive protests as UK warns of 'ramifications'

The announcement comes after UK Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng wrote a letter to chief executive Peter Hebblethwaite demanding an explanation as the government threatened P&O with an “unlimited fine” over the widely condemned decision.

“Failure to comply with the notification requirement constitutes a criminal offense and may result in an unlimited fine,” Kwarteng said.

The operator, owned by Dubai-based DP World, laid off hundreds of its employees in a Zoom operation (ZM) meeting with immediate effect last week Thursday after stopping all its crossings earlier today.

He said: “Our survival depends on rapid and meaningful change now. Without these changes there is no future for P&O Ferries. These circumstances resulted in a very difficult but necessary decision, which was only made after seriously considering all available options. “.

The eight ferries on which the dismissed staff worked, which serve Dover-Calais and Larne-Ciarnryan in particular, are all registered in the Bahamas, Cyprus or Bermuda.

Instead, P&O hired agency staff for just 1.80 an hour, according to the RMT union.

British law requires employers to consult unions and pay the legal minimum wage, now 8.91 an hour for employees aged 23 and over. However, shipping companies operating in international waters can circumvent these rules by registering their ships in other countries.

Learn more: P&O Ferries lays off 800 crew as unions urge staff to stay on board

P&O said last week that its business was no longer viable after recording a loss of 100 million euros over one year.

The company, which hires about 4,000 employees in total, said in May 2020 that it may have to make 1,100 layoffs due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Although P&O benefited from financial support during the pandemic, as well as a freight support grant, it failed to secure a €150 million bailout from the UK government.

As one of the UK's leading ferry companies, P&O carried more than 10 million passengers a year before the pandemic and was responsible for around 15% of all goods entering and leaving Britain.

P&O operates four routes: Dover to Calais; From Hull to Rotterdam; Liverpool to Dublin; and Cairnryan, Scotland, to Larne, Northern Ireland.

Watch: P&O Ferries redundancies: Replacing workers with agency staff working 1.80 hours is 'illegal', says TUC president Frances O'Grady