P&O Ferries - mass redundancies without consultation

[zwk500]

As it seems the 'right' that they were deprived of was effectively the opportunity to disrupt the Company's operations (and any additional compensation that they could blackmail the Company into paying to prevent that) - in a similar situation I am unsure that I would get loads of sympathy anyway. I am quite entitled to have my opinion as to whether any law or right is just or not (there are plenty of laws all of us don't agree with or like, I am sure) and consequently this will influence my sympathy or otherwise to those who transgress - and that works both ways as you point out!

The rights they were deprived of included their agreed notice period and their personal property. The fact they were given their notice period retrospectively does not negate the initial action and the distress it caused.

Were any of the workers given their possessions back and given additional compensation for the distress caused by the illegal manner in which they were dismissed?

 

[A0wen]

Would a prosecution (if in fact the law was broken, and which part of it) have been in the public interest? In order to sort out the competitive financial position, the company had the choice of (a) taking the risk of law breaking and paying off their staff or (b) declaring bankruptcy and paying off their staff. Either way, the staff got paid off, but in (a) I believe the staff got a better deal, and the option for many of re-employment on a new contract as the operation continued, whereas (b) would have been statutory minimum and possibly no or fewer re-employments as capacity may have been stripped out.

Bit in bold - not guaranteed at all. It would entirely depend on the financial position of the company that the administrators / receivers were working with.

Whilst employees are preferred creditors, that only extends as far as unpaid salary / holiday pay - AIUI it does not extend to any severance or redundancy package. So any enhanced redundancy packages would be lost and the employees would have to register with the Redundancy Payments Service.

And Statutory Redundancy isn't huge - there's no entitlement to it if you have less than 2 years service and the payments - which are capped at £ 643 / week are

• half a week’s pay for each full year you were under 22
• one week’s pay for each full year you were 22 or older, but under 41
• one and half week’s pay for each full year you were 41 or older

Length of service is capped at 20 years.

So e.g. if you were age 40, had worked for the company for 10 years and had a salary of £ 40k (£ 769 / week) - your statutory redundancy pay would be £ 643 x 10 = £ 6,430.

Even if you've worked for the company for many, many years - the statutory redundancy pay is capped at £ 19,290

 

[Starmill]

As it seems the 'right' that they were deprived of was effectively the opportunity to disrupt the Company's operations

They weren't entitled to do this, it's purely something you've made up to justify your position.

I am quite entitled to have my opinion as to whether any law or right is just or not (there are plenty of laws all of us don't agree with or like, I am sure)

Of course you are, provided you agree that you'd be subject to the same laws as everyone else, and that everyone should follow them. Otherwise the rule of law has no meaning. On the above basis a suggestion for how to change the law to make it better would have been better received in this thread than your prejudice about how people wanted to cause disruption - I note you didn't approach the issue in this way.

Were any of the workers given their possessions back and given additional compensation for the distress caused by the illegal manner in which they were dismissed?

Probably only those whose claims made it to the Tribunal, if any.

 

[Hadders]

P&O rode roughshod over the consultation period but I seem to remember it being said that they paud enhanced redundancy way in excess of the statutory minimum to those impacted.

 

[zwk500]

P&O rode roughshod over the consultation period but I seem to remember it being said that they paud enhanced redundancy way in excess of the statutory minimum to those impacted.

Was it in excess of the contractual minimum?

 

[Hadders]

This is what was reported at the time. 2.5 weeks pay for every year of service plus up to 13 weeks pay in lieu of notice.

P&O to pay £36.5m in compensation to 800 sacked workers

Staff who accept payouts are understood to have to sign non-disclosure agreements

www.theguardian.com

Ferry operator P&O has revealed it is paying £36.5m to cover compensation for the 800 seafarers it sacked without warning.

It is understood staff who accept the payouts will be required to sign non-disclosure agreements requiring them not to disparage the company.

The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, told the House of Commons on Monday P&O was using the agreements to “keep the employees quiet”, and accused the company of acting in a “shameful and unacceptable way”.
https://www.theguardian.com/busines...was-an-eviction-a-po-seafarer-tells-his-story
The company said it believed the settlement would be the “largest compensation package in the British marine sector”.

The payouts being offered to dismissed staff are linked to their length of service with the company, and in some cases workers will be paid more than £170,000.

P&O Ferries said 575 out of the 786 seafarers dismissed by the company are in discussions over the severance offers, with some receiving compensation equivalent to 91 weeks’ pay.

It said more than 40 workers will receive more than £100,000, while no worker will receive less than £15,000.

P&O is offering two-and-a-half weeks’ salary for each year of employment, as well as up to 13 weeks’ salary in lieu of notice, and a further 13 weeks’ salary because of the absence of a consultation period. It said the compensation package was the basis for offers made to workers at the time of dismissal.

The announcement came as the government warned P&O Ferries could face prosecution over the sackings, while Shapps said ministers were reviewing all government contracts and dealing with the ferry operator and parent company DP World.
https://www.theguardian.com/busines...-face-prosecution-over-sackings-minister-says
A spokesperson for P&O Ferries said: “This has been an incredibly tough decision for the business: to make this choice or face taking the company into administration. This would have meant the loss of 3,000 jobs and the end of P&O Ferries.”

The company said it had taken the “hard choice” to dismiss workers to guarantee the “future viability of P&O Ferries” and avoid large-scale and lengthy disruption to trade.

Several P&O services including sailings on the Dover to Calais route remain suspended, while further protests are planned at ports around the UK for the coming days.

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The RMT union said on Tuesday that seafarers from abroad had been brought in to replace the 800 sacked British crew and were being paid as little as £1.80 an hour.

P&O Ferries disputed the figures but declined to discuss the rates or give alternative rates and would not confirm whether it paid the minimum wage. The company said it would give support to sacked workers to find a new job either at sea or onshore, and would help those who could not find a new job.

P&O Ferries and its owner, DP World, are expected to face a grilling from MPs on Thursday, when they will face questions from parliament’s business and transport committees.