On the face of it, startling - appalling? - employer actions from P&O
eg
It's possibly legally-complicated because they're seafarers, but can't see how on earth they're being 'made redundant'
If these actions end up being deemed to have been lawful, then there's something badly wrong with the applicable law, IMHO.
Sadly you're right, Anne. The more sobering thought is the one that asks "If they're prepared to completely ignore employment law to save a few quid, how likely are they to have also cut corners on safety training, equipment and maintenance?"
David, I remember back when we were discussing the awful employment practices at Sports Direct, we wondered what role the HR Director there had played at the time in enabling (or, at best, not constraining) Mike Ashley's worst excesses. And similar questions have been asked of the HR leadership in Amazon (although that must perforce be influenced by US work culture).
Will the CIPD hold the HR leadership at P&O accountable for ethical violations, or whichever clever-clever change management consultant they called in to help make this happen (assuming they are members)?
According to LinkedIn, their "Head of xxx" (who I'd better not name here for all kinds of reasons) joined the company in March 2021. No CIPD membership is mentioned currently, but I have a feeling it might have been when I first looked him up there a week or so ago. One of his endorsements there states that: "....He has a passion for pushing boundaries of existing practice to explore new ideas and methodologies...." - quite so!!
The sacking of over 800 staff last week by P&O Ferries, a subsidiary of Dubai-based DP World, caused a public outcry in the UK, and prompted many questions about the legality of the process. The employees were made redundant with agency workers hired to do the work.
The CIPD invited HR-inform to give its legal perspective on the case.
P&O redundancies: seafarer employees and the scope of UK law
Seems useful comment as far as it goes but to me anyhow it doesn’t really consider the wider matters in practical context eg that it’s likely that at least one of the c. 800 dismissed employees will refuse to enter into any offered settlement agreement and therefore allow their trade union to take this to a Tribunal. And that even if the employer does succeed in exploiting this jurisdictional loophole, HM Government / Parliament may well change the applicable law, either for the future or even retrospectively.
There’s also no consideration of the notification of collective dismissals aspect specifically, as outlined by one of the trade unions involved here:
https://www.nautilusint.org/en/news-insight/news/pando-ferries-broke-the-law-and-must-be-penalised/
