By Helen Christopher

Often people only campaign and strike when they feel that they have no other choice, when they face a great injustice or it is a fight for their very survival. So it is for the 800 P&O workers sacked by video call in March. Their fight for re-instatement is continuing with their union, the RMT, taking direct action like blockading ports and fighting through the courts. It has called for a boycott of P&O.

The RMT has rightly pointed out that P&O’s actions are not fire and rehire – workers are not being given even that option. This is simply fire. New overseas staff have replaced the sacked RMT members on wages which are barely half the UK minimum wage. P&O were forced to U turn on an attempt to reduce these already meagre wages even further.

Peter Hebblethwiate, CEO of P&O ferries, is painted as the villain of the piece in the ruthless sacking of the workers. His frank admission that the company broke the law in failing to consult with staff and unions about the proposals makes him rightly a target – even Grant Shapps and the Tories joined in the condemnation - but this also serves to deflect attention from the bigger picture of the endemic attack on workers’ rights across all sectors of the economy. Hebblethwaite was in any case only expressing what we have all often experienced that “consultation” is pointless with management going through the motions because it has to. So by his logic why bother?

Of course, the double standards have been well on show. A millionaire boss shamelessly admits to breaking the law, but consequences seem to be slow in coming. (Just as fines for Downing St parties were slow to come until it became unavoidable or perhaps politically expedient.) Ferry services have failed to run due to the problems created by the mass sacking. Two ferries were detained as “unfit to sail” by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency because of failures in staff training. Despite the Tory bluster the government has raised no questions about the fitness of P&O to run these vital services nor has there been any suggestion that it might be sacked for its failures.

If it had been the RMT that had defied anti-trade union laws, the full legal might of the state would have already been brought to bear to seize its funds, have its officials up in court and destroy its organisation. This is not a question of one law for the rich – but of no laws for the rich. However, this could prove a dangerous precedent. If the working class draws the lesson that, if there are no laws for the rich then why should they be bound by oppressive and unjust laws?

P&O itself has had an inglorious history. It shipped opium to China after the Opium war which was designed to subjugate China to British rule. Over 11 years form 1847 it transported 642,000 chests of the drug. In 1987, the well-named Herald of Free Enterprise ferry sank off Zeebrugge killing 193 people. In his report on the sinking Lord Justice Sheen wrote that Townsend Thoresen, owned by P&O, possessed a "disease of sloppiness" which “permeated the company's hierarchy”. An inquest jury found a prima facie case that the company was guilty of corporate manslaughter and the Crown Prosecution Service charged the company and 7 of its employees. There were no convictions. The representatives of capital again faced no legal sanction.

No doubt Hebblethwaite and P&O are bad apples, but the whole system is rotten, characterised by fire and rehire, bogus self-employment, casualisation and zero hours contracts. Working people being pushed into mass poverty in the cost-of-living crisis, whilst wages and benefits are squeezed. Yet energy and other companies still make huge profits.

WIDER STRUGGLES

The media will not help us join up these issues or publicise them for us. Trade union, political and community organisation is essential to do that and to mobilise people. There are other battles going on. Workers have sometimes been successful in disputes against fire and rehire tactics, such as Go North West Buses, where, after a strike by Unite members lasting 85 days, the company withdrew its proposal to fire and rehire bus workers and agreed not to use the tactic again. Members of the Educational Institute of Scotland at Forth Valley College won a fight over fire and rehire in June last year. Lecturers were sacked, with the college proposing to rehire them as Instructor-Assessors on worse pay and conditions. After a lengthy dispute involving industrial action, the management was eventually forced to backtrack and the lecturers were reinstated on their original contracts. 

Where workers have been successful in winning battles on fire and rehire they have sometimes used legal mechanisms, but they have only won where they have also been prepared to take industrial action. But these have often been local disputes, reflecting the fragmentation of the workforce in industries over recent years.

However, there are some national disputes. The Universities and Colleges Union is battling huge cuts of 35% to members’ pensions which management is trying to impose. The union has completed three waves of strikes and following a further successful ballot of members in April, it will now call more strikes at 39 universities and a marking and assessment boycott at 41.

The RMT is currently holding a ballot of 40,000 railway workers in Network Rail and across 15 train operating companies over pay and proposals to cut jobs and terms and conditions. All-out strike action across the railways is threatened. Mick Lynch, General Secretary of the RMT says: “The way for trade unions to effectively take on the cost-of-living crisis is to stand up for their members at work and take industrial action when employers are not moved by the force of reasoned argument. A national rail strike will bring the country to a standstill, but our members livelihoods and passenger safety are our priorities."

P&O ferries in dover harbour. One is the Pride of Kent which was declared unfit to sail - photo by Michael Hendryckx

If it had been the RMT that had defied anti-trade union laws, the full legal might of the state would have already been brought to bear to seize its funds, have its officials up in court and destroy its organisation.