Who pays the P&O ferryman? The 800 staff thrown overboard, of course

theguardian.com:

Mesmerising work by P&O Ferries, whose decision to sack 800 seafaring staff over a Microsoft Teams meeting makes them slightly more distasteful boat owners than several people on the international sanctions list. Indeed, for the duration of the HR chief’s message on Thursday, there may even have been people smugglers in the Channel who would have been more palatable. Certainly, they seem to operate some of the same routes more reliably.

And so to how the day unfolded. On Thursday morning, P&O Ferries recalled its vessels to port with the most ominous words in the shipping forecast – “all-colleague announcement” – promising that “long-term viability” was about to be secured. Sounds good! At which point, the human resources chief, Stephen Nee, delivered a pre-recorded message from some kind of middle-management bunker, as though he were coordinating the resistance of a besieged eastern European country and not just avoiding having to look any of the staff in the eye when he tells them they’re being “restructured” with immediate effect. The former employees were informed their jobs would be promptly taken over by cheaper agency workers. Whether this is even legal is a matter of some debate; suffice to say the implications of the story continue to unfurl themselves like the petals of a stinking corpse lily.

Having made their peace with losing out on Employers of the Year 2022, P&O Ferries apparently followed up the video message by sending balaclava-wearing, handcuff-trained private security guards on to the boats to clear away all remaining … colleagues, is it? Some staff refused to leave their vessels but eventually dispersed when it was suggested that they were risking their severance. Justified outrage is apparently above