Almost 800 workers fired on the spot last month by P&O Ferries have suffered a devastating defeat.
When P&O sacked them on March 17, it gave the workers just two weeks to accept an “enhanced” redundancy package. By 5pm Thursday, 786 workers had taken the offer. According to the Guardian, just one out of the entire sacked workforce had not joined the redundancy process.
Under the leadership of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT), Nautilus and the Labour Party, nothing else could have been expected.
A spokesperson for the Nautilus International union commented, “What we’re really after now is systemic change so this can never happen again.”
Who are they kidding? It can’t happen again at P&O because they have just sacked their entire seafaring workforce and employed a replacement crew on a fraction of their wage. Irish Ferries carried out the same operation with the collaboration of the trade union bureaucracy in 2005, and also haven’t had to do anything “again”.
This is not the failure of a campaign to defend jobs; it is proof that no such campaign was ever mounted.
· On March 17, in a military-style operation planned in cahoots with the Conservative government, P&O sacked its entire seafaring workforce after calling the ships back to UK ports. The company informed crews on board via a three-minute Zoom call. P&O paid balaclava-wearing, handcuff-trained thugs to board the ships to remove staff.
· A scab workforce on standby at the ports then...
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