P&O Ferries has last chance to rehire sacked staff, says Grant Shapps
P&O Ferries has “one last opportunity” to U-turn on the sacking of 800 crew and must lift this week’s deadline for the employees to sign redundancy and non-disclosure agreements, the government has warned.
The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, wrote to the firm’s chief executive, Peter Hebblethwaite, on Monday spelling out his intention to legislate, informing him that P&O Ferries would be “left with little choice but to reverse your decision in any case”.
He warned Hebblethwaite that his position as chief executive and a director “has become untenable”.
In the letter, which Shapps posted on Twitter, he also outlined plans to bring in a package of measures to “block the outcome that P&O Ferries has pursued, including paying less than the minimum wage”.
It came as the Commons transport and business committees wrote a joint letter to Shapps demanding Hebblethwaite be struck off as a company director as “not a fit and proper person” after he “flaunted his contempt for the law” at last week’s hearings into the mass sackings on 17 March across P&O Ferries’ UK fleet.
Hebblethwaite admitted the firm broke the law by dismissing the workers without consultation, amid plans to bring in cheaper agency crew at below minimum wages, saying: “There’s absolutely no doubt we were required to consult with the unions. We chose not to do that.”
The MPs also urged the government to impose the “unlimited fine” it has threatened if it decides P&O Ferries has broken laws that require it to notify the relevant authorities of impending layoffs.
Documents published by the committees show that P&O Ferries’ Jersey office sent Insolvency Service forms on 17 March – the day of the sackings rather than at the required 30-45 days’ notice – to the relevant
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