P&O Ferries Legal Implications [2022]

What are P&O being accused of?

Employers are legally required to consult workers during a statutory notice period before making them redundant. In this case, P&O did not do this. It is trade unions belief that P&O’s actions are likely to be unlawful.

It is likely that staff who have been, or are about to be dismissed, will have claims for unfair dismissal.

Any employers that are wishing to make more than 100 redundancies must notify the business secretary at least 45 days in advance of those dismissals. Again, in this case, P&O did not provide any notice. Failure to notify the secretary of state would breach the Trade Union & Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.

P&O Ferries are being accused of ‘Fire and rehire’. This is a controversial method which is employed by some companies, when they are in a terrible financial predicament. It involves sacking staff and then telling them they can apply for their old jobs on less favourable terms. However, P&O are putting their own twist on “Fire and rehire”; rather than rehiring staff to their old jobs, they are replacing them with agency workers and providing that sacked staff could, if they wanted, join those agencies.

What will happen to the P&O workers?

Many are involving themselves in sit-ins on P&O’s ferries.

In legal terms, the question may become “whether it is lawful and reasonable for the employer to require the employee to leave the vessel and what the impact will be of an employee refusing to do so.”