Nous tous à Douvres et en particulier au conseil municipal sommes choqués et alarmés par les licenciements à P&O Ferries la semaine dernière. L'impact sur les employés de l'entreprise et sur l'ensemble de notre communauté ne peut être surestimé.
Le siège de P&O and its fleet of cross channel ferries are everyday sights in the town and many local jobs and, therefore, households have been supported directly and indirectly by the ferry services from our port.
The way in which the news was broken to the employees has been unfair and inhuman – every person deserves to be treated with dignity and respect in such a difficult situation. We empathise with and pledge our support to all those households which now face an uncertain and difficult future.
The dreadful lack of respect for British workers shown by the owners and management of P&O Ferries is compounded by their proposed exploitation of offshore replacement crew, all of whom will receive lower wages and fewer benefits and protections purely because of their ethnicity or place of origin. This is unacceptable exploitation.
We expect the government to do everything in its power to provide redress to the dismissed employees, to punish P&O for its lack of humanity and regard for the spirit of British legislation and to prevent this sort of employment abuse from happening again.
In the meantime, we pledge not to use P&O Ferries to show our support for the dismissed employees until that company reverts to proper employment practices.