The Dubai-owned ferry company’s treatment of its former employees has managed to appal even the UK government
Mesmerising work by P&O Ferries, whose decision to sack 800 seafaring staff over a Microsoft Teams meeting makes them slightly more distasteful boat owners than several people on the international sanctions list. Indeed, for the duration of the HR chief’s message on Thursday, there may even have been people smugglers in the Channel who would have been more palatable. Certainly, they seem to operate some of the same routes more reliably.
And so to how the day unfolded. On Thursday morning, P&O Ferries recalled its vessels to port with the most ominous words in the shipping forecast – “all-colleague announcement” – promising that “long-term viability” was about to be secured. Sounds good! At which point, the human resources guy delivered a pre-recorded message from some kind of middle-management bunker, as though he were coordinating the resistance of a besieged eastern European country and not just avoiding having to look any of the staff in the eye when he tells them they’re being “restructured” with immediate effect. The former employees were informed their jobs would be promptly taken over by cheaper agency workers. Whether this is even legal is a matter of some debate; suffice to say the implications of the story continue to unfurl themselves like the petals of a stinking corpse lily.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
