Christian seafaring charities have denounced P&O Ferries for sacking 800 staff without notice last week.
The Liverpool Seafarers Centre said it was “appalled by this brutal and widely condemned act” which “exposes the glaring gap in how seafarers are employed and treated”.
Stella Maris, the Catholic seafarers’ chaplaincy, said it was “deeply saddened by the news” and was “available to provide pastoral and financial support to the seafarers affected by this decision”.
P&O announced the redundancies via a video call to its crews on Thursday, in order to replace them with cheaper agency workers from India. Its foreign-registered ships are not bound by British employment law or the minimum wage. Many are flagged to the Netherlands, Cyprus, or the Bahamas.
The Rail, Maritime, and Transport Union claims that the replacement workers will be paid £1.81 an hour. P&O disputes this but has not provided a figure.
John Wilson, the chief executive of the Liverpool Seafarers Centre, said that these registrations and ownership structures allowed P&O “to drive a coach and horses through normal redundancy practices”.
“A loophole has been ruthlessly exploited and seafarers are the ones who suffer most,” he told The Tablet. “This should be the moment the International Maritime Organisation took action better to protect seafarers from this corporate behaviour and updated the Maritime Labour Convention which governs seafarers rights.”
“The reality is seafarers are too often exploited by the opaqueness of international law and whatever flag state they sail under.”
The Liverpool Seafarers Centre originated in cooperation between the Anglican Mersey Mission and the city’s Catholic Apostleship of the Sea, following the ecumenical work of Archbishop Derek Worlock and Bishop David Sheppard in Liverpool.
“Somehow, something must be done to prevent seafarers ever being treated like this again,” continued Mr Wilson. “But for me it is the tip of the iceberg in terms of how cheaper seafarers mostly from India, the Philippines, China, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Myanmar, and Easter Europe are exploited to drive down fairs and freight fees.”
The union said that the P&O crews were “being replaced by exploited workers, vulnerable workers from overseas”.
There were protests on Monday outside the London offices of DP World, the Dubai-based owners of P&O.
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