Will you write to the UK Prime Minister, and the Secretaries of Transport and Business, and call on them to outlaw fire and re-hire now?
Never let another jobs massacre happen in the UK again.
P&O Ferries’ brutal mass sacking has destroyed 800 seafarers’ jobs and turned families’ lives upside down. Despite being hauled in front of parliament, and admitting to blatantly breaking the law, the company’s CEO has said “I would make this decision again”.
This raises serious questions about corporate impunity and the powers of the UK Government to hold rogue employers, and their parent companies, to account when they break the law.
For years, unions have criticised major loopholes in UK employment and equality law for its failure to protect working people. Shockingly, right now UK law allows employers to fire staff and then re-hire them on the same jobs, or simply outsource them, with worse terms and conditions.
Without immediate action, the P&O Ferries sackings will be a template for employers across the country to ruthlessly fire workers and replace them with cheaper, more easily exploitable labour.
The time for speeches in Parliament is over. The UK Government must act now to prevent another P&O Ferries' style jobs massacre.