New crew on P&O ships will be paid at rates well below the minimum wage, a union has claimed amid continued anger over the sacking of 800 workers by the ferry giant.
The Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) said it had discovered another “shocking twist” to the scandal because replacement crews on P&O ships will be on “poverty pay”.
More demonstrations will be held in the next few days, with growing pressure on the company to reverse its decision and the Government to take action.
The RMT said P&O ships on the Liverpool-Dublin route have now been crewed with Filipino ratings on contracts which pay below the minimum wage.
RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said: “The weakness in UK employment law has not only allowed the mass dismissing of UK seafarers it has also incentivised this barbaric behaviour because employers know there may be no effective sanction to stop them doing so, and on top of that they can get away with paying below the minimum wage.
“P&O may pay more than the minimum wage at first to agency staff but they will eventually move to rates below this simply because there is nothing to stop them from doing so.
“We fear poverty pay will be accompanied by seafarers being chained to 12-hour day, seven-day week contracts that operate continuously for six months, with no pension.”
ITV’s Joel Hills wrote a thread to explain how the ferry company plans to pay crew 1.80 an hour and how they can get away with it.
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