Eye-watering payouts to DP World bosses an insult to common decency – TUC 

P&O Ferries owner DP World paid $18.9 million (£15.5 million) to bosses last year after the illegal mass sacking of hundreds of seafarers in March 2022 and replacing them with cheap agency workers from overseas.

The Morning Star reported: “P&O sacked its workforce, who were mainly members of union RMT, in a carefully planned operation which had squads of security guards ready to board ferries in port, evict the mariners and bring agency workers on board to replace them.

Since then the Morning Star has reported that in Hull, P&O agency workers are living in tents after finishing 17-week stints at sea because they cannot afford to get home.”

TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak commented:

“DP World has been allowed to get away scot-free despite behaving like corporate gangsters. These eye-watering payouts for bosses come off the back of P&O Ferries illegally sacking hundreds of dedicated staff. They are an insult to common decency.

Ministers should have stripped DP World of all their lucrative public contracts and severed all commercial ties with the company. And they should have strengthened the law to make sure another P&O Ferries scandal is never allowed to happen again. But one year on – they have only made it easier for rogue employers to act with impunity.

Instead of attacking the right to strike and threatening hard-won workers’ rights, ministers should get on with boosting worker protections. Without stronger protections for workers, there is nothing stopping another P&O Ferries scandal from happening again.”