Levelling up at work

It seems that the owners of P&O, a major operator of ferries between the UK, Ireland and mainland Europe, in the face of massive losses during the plague years and the prospect of massive rises in their fuel bill, have decided to replace their expensive crews with cheaper agency crews from Cyprus. A brutal change involving teams of security men to clear ferries and abrupt cancellation of all sailings while the agency crews are brought in and trained up.

Registration of these ferries was moved to Cyprus as part of the Brexit dividend.

The parent company of the once proud Peninsular & Orient Steamship Navigation Company, DP World of reference 5, is owned by the Emir of Dubai, a member of the very same United Arab Emirates which our fat leader was cuddling just a few days ago, in an effort to secure more energy supplies.

All in all a rather brutal reminder of our changed place in the world and a taste of trouble to come, when the revised fuel & grain bills start to come in.

PS 1: Getty charge handsomely for proper use of their snap. But this screen scrape seemed more interesting than the scrape from the FT.

PS 2: BH right again. Peninsular was for the Iberian peninsular, not the subcontinental one, as I had thought. Although the P&O business did grow from the one to the other during the 19th century. And I have been pleased to learn that there are still docks at Liverpool: the Mersey had looked very quiet last time I was there, with scarcely a ship to be seen. All dockland heritage rather than docks.

References

Reference 1: P&O Ferries sacks 800 sailors and halts crossings for days: Unions hit out over lack of consultation as company warns it is not ‘a viable business’ - Philip Georgiadis, Harry Dempsey, Jim Pickard, Simeon Kerr, Financial Times - 2022

Reference 2: P&O Ferries: rising inflation provides no excuse for brutal sackings: Such aggressive tactics have rarely been seen in UK since Wapping print workers strike of 1986 - Lex, Financial Times - 2022.

Reference 3: How P&O’s ruthless decision brought chaos to Britain’s ports: Unions hit out at ‘shameful’ move to replace UK crew with cheaper agency staff - Philip Georgiadis, Delphine Strauss, Jim Pickard, Ian Johnston, Harry Dempsey, Financial Times - 2022.

Reference 4: P&O ferries Norbank and Norbay moored Gladstone Dock in Liverpool on Thursday © Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images. The caption to a photograph in the FT, probably a close-up version of the one above. As it happens, the one above is slightly dearer than the close-up.

Reference 5: https://www.dpworld.com/. The parent company.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%26O_(company). The heritage company.

Reference 7: https://www.columbia-shipmanagement.com/. One of the Cypriot companies involved, invented by one Heinrich Schoeller in 1978.