Fired on Zoom call, P&O Workers Snarl Ports by Refusing to Leave
Britain’s P&O Ferries slashed 800 jobs on a Zoom call in an effort to cut losses, triggering protests that confined ships to port and disrupted English Channel crossings as fired workers refused to leave their posts.
The Dover-based company’s vessels will be primarily crewed by an outside agency going forward, ferry workers were told Thursday via video, after P&O Ferries called its ships into port. Their union told them to stay put.
“I am sorry to inform you that this means your employment is terminated with immediate effect, on the grounds of redundancy,” an official said in the clip, posted by the BBC. “Your final day of employment is today.”
The standoff that arose from the surprise move threatens continuity on vital trade links between the U.K., Ireland and continental Europe. While thousands of trucks depend on P&O Ferries each day to make the crossing, the company said it couldn’t continue without major changes after Brexit and Covid-19 battered its finances.
“In its current state, P&O Ferries is not a viable business,” the company said in a statement. “Our survival is dependent on making swift and significant changes now. Without these changes there is no future for P&O Ferries.”
P&O Ferries’ annual losses of 100 million pounds ($131 million) were covered by its owners, the Dubai ports operator DP World.
The cuts, representing more than a quarter of its workforce, disrupted services even before a formal announcement was made. The move caught the union and the government by surprise. Operations won’t resume for the next few days, the company said.
Junior Transport Minister Robert Courts later clarified the time frame, saying P&O’s service would be interrupted “for approximately a week to 10 days while they locate new
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