Off Topic P&O
- Thread starter TheCasual
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No need to drag politics in. Both main parties have done things that led us to here.
The question is whether anyone has the appetite to do anything about it for this case and for the future
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I think this case is done and dusted, as for the future what to do ??
After ww2 the UK brought in workers from the Caribbean and Germany took many from Turkey as Gastarbeiters. The expansion of the European Union has given new opportunities to those from the former East Europe to live and work in the West. They move to better themselfs, better standard of living and / or more money. Even in Qatar knowing the risks and conditions involved there seems to be no shortage of Asians prepared to go there.
This is true .
I watched a Michael Portillo train thing. The other day and he was at the London Brick makers plant .
After the war it was firstly kept going by prisoners .
Then they had to go to Southern Italy to recruit then India .
Never knew that
Trouble is a lot more blameless employees would lose their jobs then.
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That's the crux.
Yes, of course it could have been handled better, but drastic action was needed, including not least to secure the remaining 2000+ UK jobs.
As P&O said, there was no point going through a consultation with the Unions as they would never have agreed to what was needed. P&O would already have discussed a range of options with employee representatives in the months & years leading up to this and got nowhere near to where they needed to be (hence deciding not to follow due process of consultation).
If people don't want a repeat, then laws needs to change - use of & pay for off shore workers, penalties for not following due process, etc, but such changes would also bring other negative consequences. Not straightforward.
I think you’re mistaking consultation for negotiation.
Not sure on your point Ben. Feel free to expand.
In my experience, Unions often use consultations as an opportunity to negotiate, Company's often use consultations as an opportunity to get fresh ideas & input that they hadn't themselves thought of. Not saying this is always the case, of course it isn't, but I have personally seen this play out time and again. Consultation is not negotiation.
I think 45 days is for upto 100 workers, over that and its 90 days. What happens when the time is up and there's still no agreement?
It seems this wasn't a complete surprise, this Yorkshire Post article is two years old...
Job losses in Hull as P&O looks to make more than 1,000 redundancies
Around 1,100 workers at P&O Ferries look set to be made redundant as part of a plan to make the business "viable and sustainable", the company said.
https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/new...-po-looks-make-more-1000-redundancies-2849608
Job losses in Hull as P&O looks to make more than 1,000 redundancies
Around 1,100 workers at P&O Ferries look set to be made redundant as part of a plan to make the business "viable and sustainable", the company said.
https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/new...-po-looks-make-more-1000-redundancies-2849608
It's a consultation, not a process to get to an agreement. After the consultation, the company can simply proceed with it's proposal ..... but the Union's might end up taking official (or unofficial) action depending on the circumstances.
Good find. Supports the view that of course this was not out of the blue, that discussions will have been going on for months, even years previous about the harsh restructurings needed. There was of course no way the Unions could support such proposals, hence the Company deciding the set consultation process was a waste of everyone's time and brought other complications, and to instead make compensation payments above what was required. Anyone, particularly the Unions, pretending this all came out of the blue is disingenuous.
I agree, although there is a legal obligation to consult with employees when making redundancies. Good consultation can lead to negotiation.
A legal consultation regarding redundancies would normally follow a similar process.
The consultation must be meaningful & have the intention of minimising job losses.
The company representatives would give a detailed presentation of their plans regarding the redundancies. This would include a rationale behind their business plan, how it will benefit the company, the total number of roles being made redundant & exactly which roles these would be. They’d show an organigram of how the new company structure will look as well as names in the roles that people have been placed or not affected.
There would normally be a period of closed consultation (used to be 30 days with large numbers) followed by a 15 day period of of open consultation. The closed consultation has an expectation of confidentiality, usually broken by senior managers & because of this sometimes a hush hush NDA is asked for.
The open consultation period is used to reveal to constituents & members what had been discussed & go through the oncoming process with them.
During the closed consultation period the employee representatives will have the opportunity to question the business leaders on their decisions. Request to speak to other business leaders who are not part of the consultation process but were part of preparing the business model. Questions & suggestions would be asked or prsented regarding the business model, the process of selection for each new role (if people are being retained), putting together a package for the affected staff that will best enable them to find alternative employment. Making sure all processes have been followed correctly (eg you’d be shown a copy pf the HR1 form).
I’d normally ask for a FAQ document to be prepared & updated throughout the consultation period to aid constituents when they are made aware.
The company is not required to agree to any suggestions that are made or change their plans. Although a good company would do so.
Negotiation is totally different. Negotiations are needed to reach an agreement. Consultation is an exchange of ideas.
In the P&O case consultation wasn’t carried out because there were no redundancies to consult about, just illegal terminations. If they had dressed it up as such they’d have been found out much sooner.
If that’s the case then there was more than enough time for them to fulfil their legal responsibilities.