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P&O Ferries sacks workers and docks ships

You didn't answer my question as to why the question couldn't be asked as well as the ones you asked.

Another question that has puzzled me for a while. This is really just a difference of opinion. I'd like to see the question asked, you wouldn't. Why do you go off into the insults:

Quite a few of your posts on the boards try to make people feel guilty for trivial things, or feel stupid over trivial matters. Why do you do this? What do you gain by making people feel guilty and stupid when a simple post pointing out why you disagree would do?

Most of what you've written above is nonsense, especially the last sentence. But this is urban75 and insulting each other is what we do. I receive many more insults than I hand out so you are not going to succeed in your attempt to make me feel guilty about making some trivial comments.

That said, saying that I think what someone has written is stupid or a waste of time is not really an insult, it's just a statement of opinion.
 
You plum! The hypocrisy that the questioning pointed out was his supposed exceptance of one set of laws (i.e. speed limits) but not others. Why you are trying yourself in knots trying to avoid this all too obvious fact is a bit weird and not very interesting.

Louis MacNeice
Well, it was actually the silly question about speeding rules that was one of the parts of that exchange that made me roll my eyes the most.

What does anyone expect him to answer? Yes, he regularly breaks speeding rules when he can get away with it? Of course his only option is to shake his head sheepishly.

Part of the reason it was a stupid question for his interlocutor to ask is that breaking speeding rules is actually an example of something lots of people do every day, because they have calculated that they are happy to take the small risk of getting some points on their license in exchange for getting to their destination 30 seconds earlier.

In other words all he did was provide an example of calculated rule-breaking that many "ordinary" people can relate to, which somewhat defeated the purpose of his moralistic line of questioning.
 
Have any of the interviewers asked him why he hasn't sacked himself and reapplied for his job at Ā£3 an hour?
By the way, in response to the questions about why can't we talk about the raw economics and also point out the disparity in pay between management and workers, well, I never actually said we couldn't, and I also agree that a few pointed questions might be helpful in setting a context in which people can view things like whether they support union action or legislative change or whatever. But it's the above stupid question that I was initially responding to - which I maintain is a stupid question. Everyone knows why he hasn't sacked himself.
 
Asking questions like that is stupid and pointless. Everyone knows the answer. This kind of thing is never going to be prevented by the good will of management. It also seems quite delusional to me that the "reputation" of P&O is going to be damaged in a way that has any commercial impact.

These decisions are simply taken in an economic context. They would be taken by whoever was in control. If competitors can massively cut their wage bills, how can it be anything other than inevitable that these actions will be taken, unless the environment the companies work in is changed? If the environment is such that accepting some fines is cheaper than going through the proper process, why would anyone be surprised that that route is taken?

Something has to be done via legislation - or indeed by the unions using whatever economic power they have. Focusing on the morals or lifestyles of executives is dimwitted and a waste of time.
On phone, so I'll limit myself to a short comment: BOLLOCKS.
 
(weirdly the first tweets I saw on the P&O scandal as it broke a week ago was from a "Juche4UK" type from Liverpool :/ )
Did see a big red flag in Liverpool today with a weird form of hammer and sickle I'd never seen before, was trying to think if that was likely to be the poster you'd encountered but I've now looked it up and learned that Juche is hammer, sickle, and brush, whereas this thing was like hammer and sickle but not crossing over each other, just arranged vaguely near each other?
 
Did see a big red flag in Liverpool today with a weird form of hammer and sickle I'd never seen before, was trying to think if that was likely to be the poster you'd encountered but I've now looked it up and learned that Juche is hammer, sickle, and brush, whereas this thing was like hammer and sickle but not crossing over each other, just arranged vaguely near each other?
Either Hammer Or Sickle But Never Both Together sounds like a particularly proscriptive maxim
 
Did see a big red flag in Liverpool today with a weird form of hammer and sickle I'd never seen before, was trying to think if that was likely to be the poster you'd encountered but I've now looked it up and learned that Juche is hammer, sickle, and brush, whereas this thing was like hammer and sickle but not crossing over each other, just arranged vaguely near each other?

Neither Hammer nor Sickle but Brush 111
 
They were obviously in trouble hence the pretty daft manoeuvre of laying everyone off. I'm trying to avoid puns here so given the importance of sea freight I'm guessing nationalisation may be the Govt's only option in the here and now?
 
I'm still not 100% clear on where the passenger ferry vs shipping freight distinction lies - does P&O definitely carry both? If it's just a passenger line then it seems much more possible that the government won't rescue them?
 
I'm still not 100% clear on where the passenger ferry vs shipping freight distinction lies - does P&O definitely carry both? If it's just a passenger line then it seems much more possible that the government won't rescue them?
Nah, they carry loads of freight.
 
It does seem that the decision was taken by someone who knows nothing about ship operations..maybe they kept it secret from the ship technical management side of the business.

Ship safety management systems have a lot on the induction of new staff onto ships. Dover-Calais is a very difficult route as you come out of Dover outer harbour at 14kts into the busiest shipping lane in the world, at right angles to the traffic separation zone. (Iā€™ve done it on a bridge simulator at a nautical school) Itā€™s a job to learn from experienced master mariners, not something you can put a bridge management team where no one has done the route before. I assume the captains also need pilot exemptions for both ports.

I understand the crews currently work 2 weeks on-2 weeks off. Crews from further afield may be on 9 month contracts. Short Ro-pax is an exhausting trade. Iā€™m sure cumulative fatigue will be an issue for crews recruited globally (the officers may well come from places like Ukraine, and be on shorter rotations, but the point holds)

Iā€™d rather not use these ferries for couple of years until the new staff are up to speed.
 
They were obviously in trouble hence the pretty daft manoeuvre of laying everyone off.

Itā€™s the starkest example of the genre, their staff load, sail and stewed ships. Their staff did that and there were no issues with their work. The management were handsomely rewarded for managing the business yet it was losing money hand over fist. Clear as day the management failed in their jobs and think that by saving three or four pounds an hour on the coal face staff will cover up for their ineptitude.
 
So, the Government are unable to prosecute P&O ferries due to an EU Directive (bitterly ironic, given earlier attempts by Remain cranks to claim Brexit was to blame for the actions of P&O bosses) that removes the need for shipping companies to notify the Secretary of State and merely requires them to notify the country where the vessel is registered (which P&O didnā€™t bother doing either but I canā€™t see Bermuda being all that bothered).

P&O have already told Shapps that theyā€™ll be ignoring his demand for reinstatement:


Workers face a choice of either acquiescing to the enhanced redundancy package, and thereby signing away their legal rights to go to ET, or risking it all at an ET.

This is the neo-feudal employment framework that Thatcher always longed for now fully visible. Every route to access to justice for workers closed off or too expensive to pursue.

 
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So, the Government are unable to prosecute P&O ferries due to an EU Directive (ironic, given earlier attempts by Remain cranks to claim Brexit was to blame for the actions of P&O bosses).

P&O have already told Shapps that theyā€™ll be ignoring his demand for reinstatement. Workers face a choice of either acquiescing to the enhanced redundancy package, and thereby signing away their legal rights to go to ET, or risking it all at an ET.

This is the neo-feudal employment framework that Thatcher always longed for now fully visible. Every route to access to justice for workers closed off or too expensive to pursue.


Showing that re-arranging a state's trading arrangements within the neoliberal context was always only that. Taking back control; my arse.
 
interesting the government who promised to take back control did not take back control

so it's the EU's fault ok

at least your coming around to the idea that leave the EU had fuck all benefits smoke
 
interesting the government who promised to take back control did not take back control

so it's the EU's fault ok

I realise itā€™s hard for you to understand anything without refracting it through the prism of the defeat of project remain. And, no doubt if this EU directive had been dumped youā€™d have been among the first to be complaining about it.

But, the main point here is the neo-feudal order thatā€™s what left of the organised working class is confronted by after 45 years of consistent anti-working class and anti-trade union activity. As Sharon Graham put it recently the task we face is to rebuild working class power ā€œThe trade union movement is in a critical place. The flame flickers, but we cannot escape the reality. Unions are simply not present in many service industries and in some cases remain wedded to out-of-date structures that play into the bossesā€™ hands. Outside of the workplace, many comrades remain singularly enthralled to the restoration of a political project that has no realistic road map for revival.

Speaking plainly, it is time to face facts. There is no Westminster hero coming to save us. We must do it ourselves, before it is too late. Specifically, we must build popular, working-class power.

To that end, it is important that we remember that the progressive left is more than Parliament, and more than the leadership of one party. It can sometimes look as though we have forgotten that fact ā€” forgotten that there was a time before Corbyn, and that the parliamentary road also has its limits; forgotten that while state power in one country is very important, on its own, in a global world facing climate catastrophe, it is also wildly insufficientā€.
 
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