A pre-emptive injunctive relief power is necessary to stop rogue employers in the future, says RMT
Without pre-emptive legal teeth, the Employment Rights Bill risks creating loopholes for employers to exploit- warns Union
The RMT is urging ministers to take decisive steps to ensure the Employment Rights Bill includes powers to halt illegal sackings before they happen, sending a clear message to employers: No More P&Os.
The Employment Rights Bill presently introduces a new right to claim automatic unfair dismissal where the dismissal occurred because either an employee did not agree to vary their contract or because an employee is dismissed and replaced by another employee or is re-engaged on varied terms to carry out the same duties as before. Crucially, this does not include a P&O type situation, as the provision does not apply where the reason for the dismissal is to replace an employee with someone employed by an agency.
Three years ago nearly 800 seafarers were unlawfully sacked by P&O Ferries with no notice or consultation. Employees were immediately replaced by low-paid agency workers. The Seafarer’s Union is today calling for the introduction of a pre-emptive injunctive relief power, allowing unions to stop rogue employers in the courts before they axe unionised crews and replace them with agency labour on poverty pay and exploitative rotas.
Speaking on the Day of the Seafarer – an International Maritime Organisation event, RMT General Secretary, Eddie Dempsey, said:
“The unlawful actions of P&O Ferries in sacking 800 seafarers with zero warning and replacing them with cheap labour shocked the country but the law still does not stop another company from doing exactly the same thing.
“If we are serious about saying ‘No More P&Os’, then we need laws that let unions get into court and stop the damage before it happens, not after workers’ jobs and lives have already been torn apart.
“The Government’s progress on the Seafarers Charter and the Employment Rights Bill is welcome, but now it’s time to finish the job.
The Union welcomes the government’s consultation on strengthening remedies against abuse of rules on collective redundancy and fire and rehire, which recognised the importance of extending interim relief awards where employees are bringing an unfair dismissal claim under the new right introduced by the ERB. However, the Union warns that without pre-emptive legal teeth, the Employment Rights Bill risks creating loopholes for employers to exploit. Dempsey added:
“Whether you’re working in ferries, offshore energy, cargo or deep sea shipping, you deserve the right to secure, unionised work that cannot be ripped away overnight by any employer acting with impunity.”
The IER published a number of suggestions to improve the Bill’s approach to banning fire and rehire, including ensuring that it is unfair for an employer to dismiss employees with a view to replacing them with workers supplied by an agency on inferior terms or lower wages. Alongside this, our experts said that remedies must be strengthened so that employees get immediate redress if they can establish their dismissal is likely to be in breach of the proposed new law, enabling an order to be made that the employee is reinstated on full pay until a decision is made.
IER Chairperson, Lord John Hendy KC, recently made the case for stronger remedies where employers act unlawfully in collective redundancies with his amendment to the Bill in the House of Lords. You can watch his intervention here.
