P&O recruitment agency says it knew nothing about sackings

A recruitment agency that provided P&O Ferries with workers to replace laid-off staff has denied any prior knowledge of the mass redundancies.

The ferry operator laid off 800 sailors without warning in a video message last Thursday.

The new workers hired by Clyde Marine Recruitment soon arrived at Cairnryan port in Dumfries and Galloway.

But the company insisted it had inadvertently hired replacements and denied they were cheap labor.

Managing Director Ian Livingstone said: “Clyde Marine Recruitment Ltd has supplied P&O with crews and officers for over 30 years.

“We were as shocked as everyone else in the UK shipping business when news broke that 600 crew and 200 officers would lose their jobs with immediate effect.

“We fully understand the anger felt by the crews, their families and their fans.”

All P&O travel between Cairnryan and Larne in Country Antrim, Northern Ireland, has stopped since the looting.

P&O Ferries said the layoff measures were a “last resort” to save business.

The Scottish government said it was reviewing all publicly funded contracts with the operator.

The agency’s seafarers have told BBC Scotland how they turned around and left Cairnryan Harbor when they realized what the job entailed.

Gavin Hamilton, from Paisley, and Mark Canet-Baldwin, from Lincolnshire, said they had not received any information about the ship they would be working on.

The two only realized it was a P&O ship when their coach pulled up to the dock.

They were accompanied by a dozen handcuffed security guards.

Mr Hamilton said: “I knew a lot of people on board who were going to lose their jobs and that just didn’t sit well with me.

“When we realized that the RMT was involved and that it was a big union dispute, we didn’t want to be a part of it. For us, boarding that ship was like crossing a picket line.”

UK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has questioned whether P&O’s actions may have breached labor law.

His Scottish government counterpart, Jenny Gilruth, also backed calls for the redundancies to be reversed, saying P&O Ferries would undoubtedly suffer reputational damage from its handling of the situation.

The recruitment agency involved is now seeking to distance itself from the dispute and claims it was providing cheap foreign labour.

Ian Livingston of Clyde Marine added: “Claims that Clyde Marine Recruitment has supplied P&O with foreign crews at lower rates are incorrect.

“All the crew and officers we have provided to P&O are at full UK industry rates.”

The RMT union has claimed that the new crew of the P&O ships will receive wages well below the minimum wage.

Its general secretary, Mick Lynch, said: “The weakness of UK labor law has not only enabled the mass redundancies of UK seafarers, but has also incentivized this barbaric behaviour.

“Employers know that there may not be an effective penalty preventing them from doing so, and furthermore, they can get away with paying less than minimum wage.

“P&O may pay agency staff more than minimum wage at first, but eventually they will switch to lower rates simply because there is nothing to stop them from doing so.

“We fear that poverty wages are accompanied by seafarers being chained to 12-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week contracts operating continuously for six months, with no pension.”

Mass looting has sparked protests at ports used across the UK.

The RMT has said it will organize a boycott and demonstration in Cairnryan from 12 noon on Wednesday.