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March 29 2024 1.31pm

P and Oh Dear!

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View YT's Profile YT Flag Oxford 19 Mar 22 8.49am Send a Private Message to YT Add YT as a friend

Originally posted by kevlee


Tony Blair left office 15 years ago!!
In the last 10 years there have been numerous laws passed to weaken UK employment protection, in support of the 'free market' which means giving employers more powers to do what they want. Its what people voted for.

Tony Blair said to the 1995 Labour Party Conference "[under a Labour government] there will be an end to zero-hours contracts". As I recall it, there was a Labour government between 1997 and 2010, but Blair's pledge appears not to have been met.

 


Palace since 19 August 1972. Palace 1 (Tony Taylor) Liverpool 1 (Emlyn Hughes)

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View Badger11's Profile Badger11 Flag Beckenham 19 Mar 22 9.46am Send a Private Message to Badger11 Add Badger11 as a friend

Originally posted by kevlee


Tony Blair left office 15 years ago!!
In the last 10 years there have been numerous laws passed to weaken UK employment protection, in support of the 'free market' which means giving employers more powers to do what they want. Its what people voted for.

Please give examples. I have tried looking on the interweb and so far I have comes across lots of articles saying the Tories will do this and that but no actual legislation.

In fact employment rights have actually been strengthened e.g. court decisions about the gig economy / Uber for example.

I am not saying that the Tories won't weaken them in the future but I don't think the major stuff has changed since Labour was in power but happy to be proved wrong.

Simply put Tony Blair had the chance to roll back the anti union Thatcher laws and didn't.

 


One more point

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View Dubai Eagle's Profile Dubai Eagle Online Flag 19 Mar 22 11.04am Send a Private Message to Dubai Eagle Add Dubai Eagle as a friend

I would suspect that the biggest issue was the fact of the P&O workers belonging to a union - it has its plus points for the worker but very little benefit for the management (in the modern day) Unions want a fair deal for their people which is completely understandable, however you sometimes get situations where what the company can realistically afford to pay & still bring the product (or service) to market (with profit for the shareholders) is a considerable distance from the bargaining position of the Union / workers.

With rising energy costs its not difficult to imagine that if there has been a history of difference of opinion between company & union over wages , perks, terms & benefits that at a certain point in time there has to be a line drawn in the sand -

In this case there was apparently an option - Negotiate with the union(s) or cut the jobs from the company (redundancy & take the legal ramifications / costs in one hit- one financial year) & outsource the work to a 3rd party company which if the press reports are to be believed reduce the labour costs by 50%.


Originally posted by Mapletree

In 2020 - the last filed accounts - it made £68.4m EBITDA. I guess the question would be what would the future hold, would it return to profit. I assume Brexit will have reduced its revenue last year as well as COVID. But we are told the Brexit effect is now reducing and trade recovering so I don't see why 2021 would be anything other than a blip.

Maybe P&O is using last year's results as an excuse to do what it had been wanting to do for a while...

Also, annual results can be worked upon to make them look better or worse, I suspect the worst possible scenario was put forward.

 

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View Jimenez's Profile Jimenez Flag SELHURSTPARKCHESTER,DA BRONX 19 Mar 22 1.55pm Send a Private Message to Jimenez Add Jimenez as a friend

Originally posted by Grumbles

He wasn't. He was pointing out extremely light weight thinking.

You were rude just apologise, a thought that would go far with many posters on this site.

It seems here many will fire off insults until they get a yellow card, and then because they can't trust themselves don't post for a month.

Then I apologise for 'light weight thinking' in any case who asked you?

 


Pro USA & Israel

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View YT's Profile YT Flag Oxford 19 Mar 22 2.38pm Send a Private Message to YT Add YT as a friend

Originally posted by Dubai Eagle

I would suspect that the biggest issue was the fact of the P&O workers belonging to a union - it has its plus points for the worker but very little benefit for the management (in the modern day) Unions want a fair deal for their people which is completely understandable, however you sometimes get situations where what the company can realistically afford to pay & still bring the product (or service) to market (with profit for the shareholders) is a considerable distance from the bargaining position of the Union / workers.

With rising energy costs its not difficult to imagine that if there has been a history of difference of opinion between company & union over wages , perks, terms & benefits that at a certain point in time there has to be a line drawn in the sand -

In this case there was apparently an option - Negotiate with the union(s) or cut the jobs from the company (redundancy & take the legal ramifications / costs in one hit- one financial year) & outsource the work to a 3rd party company which if the press reports are to be believed reduce the labour costs by 50%.


In my (long) experience, unions do lots of "political agitation" but do very little towards securing a "fair deal" for their members. I suspect that, deep down, they recognise that the vast majority of employers are pretty decent towards their workforces.

 


Palace since 19 August 1972. Palace 1 (Tony Taylor) Liverpool 1 (Emlyn Hughes)

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View Mapletree's Profile Mapletree Flag Croydon 19 Mar 22 11.11pm Send a Private Message to Mapletree Add Mapletree as a friend

Originally posted by Dubai Eagle

I would suspect that the biggest issue was the fact of the P&O workers belonging to a union - it has its plus points for the worker but very little benefit for the management (in the modern day) Unions want a fair deal for their people which is completely understandable, however you sometimes get situations where what the company can realistically afford to pay & still bring the product (or service) to market (with profit for the shareholders) is a considerable distance from the bargaining position of the Union / workers.

With rising energy costs its not difficult to imagine that if there has been a history of difference of opinion between company & union over wages , perks, terms & benefits that at a certain point in time there has to be a line drawn in the sand -

In this case there was apparently an option - Negotiate with the union(s) or cut the jobs from the company (redundancy & take the legal ramifications / costs in one hit- one financial year) & outsource the work to a 3rd party company which if the press reports are to be believed reduce the labour costs by 50%.


Not really

There is a consultation requirement of 45 days but not negotiation. I assume this is guess work. It appears to be based upon an anti union bias but have no substantiating facts.

Note that there is also a legal requirement to inform the redundancy payments service 45 days before redundancies.

 

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View Forest Hillbilly's Profile Forest Hillbilly Flag in a hidey-hole 20 Mar 22 5.20am Send a Private Message to Forest Hillbilly Add Forest Hillbilly as a friend

Originally posted by Dubai Eagle

I would suspect that the biggest issue was the fact of the P&O workers belonging to a union - it has its plus points for the worker but very little benefit for the management (in the modern day) Unions want a fair deal for their people which is completely understandable, however you sometimes get situations where what the company can realistically afford to pay & still bring the product (or service) to market (with profit for the shareholders) is a considerable distance from the bargaining position of the Union / workers.

With rising energy costs its not difficult to imagine that if there has been a history of difference of opinion between company & union over wages , perks, terms & benefits that at a certain point in time there has to be a line drawn in the sand -

In this case there was apparently an option - Negotiate with the union(s) or cut the jobs from the company (redundancy & take the legal ramifications / costs in one hit- one financial year) & outsource the work to a 3rd party company which if the press reports are to be believed reduce the labour costs by 50%.


Reducing labour costs would be one benefit and can also be used as a bargaining tool. P&O seem to want to play hardball with negotiations.
The other benefit to outsourcing workers, is that they can get even less workers rights (zero hours, no holiday/sick pay, pay suppression) so the current situation won't arise again

 


"The facts have changed", Rishi Sunak

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View Dubai Eagle's Profile Dubai Eagle Online Flag 20 Mar 22 7.56am Send a Private Message to Dubai Eagle Add Dubai Eagle as a friend

Hi Maple,
Absolutely this is guesswork -I have never in my life had to negotiate with a union - although it seems that the company have decided to downsize their employed labour force choosing to outsource 800 jobs, all 800 on this occasion are based from one operational location (i.e the UK) & all are (apparently) Union members -

One would suspect that prior to taking this outsourcing action the company will had had quotations / operational guarantee's from this 3rd party as to their capability & charges - if its true that P & O are saving anywhere near 50% of the labour cost & getting rid of all the legal requirements / benefits associated with having direct employees & if as they are stating that they are currently losing 100 million per year (bottom line) the attractiveness of the proposal from a board level isn't difficult to see.

My take (my guesswork, if you will) was based on Middle East experience where the concept of having an additional body
(Union) representing a companies direct labour workforce in the face of the management is not something that is encouraged (to put it mildly)

For a global operator if you cant get the labour force in a specific country / location to operate at a cost that you can accept then outsourcing labour to 3rd party contractors doesn't have anywhere near the same "social conscience" level as say a company wholly owned & based in one country.

We have all seen manufacturing companies who have taken over other manufacturing companies in different countries, when downsizing inevitably occurs its almost always the company that got bought out that suffers not the company that did the buying out

Also - if this goes reasonably well - obviously everything is relative (not too much disruption to service / not too much bad press / not too much litigation cost, not too much Government fall out etc) I wouldn't be surprised to see the same company do it again in other operating centres.

On the 45 days thing - I have no idea- but if your undertaking this kind of exercise & its going to take a massive chunk off your wage bill / HR responsibilities for 800 employees going forwards - is there a possibility to pay each effected worker another 45 days money (in lieu of consultation time ? along with whatever severance pay is offered)

I am not connected to anything, not in the know - this is just my tuppence worth from afar for what its worth.


Originally posted by Mapletree

Not really

There is a consultation requirement of 45 days but not negotiation. I assume this is guess work. It appears to be based upon an anti union bias but have no substantiating facts.

Note that there is also a legal requirement to inform the redundancy payments service 45 days before redundancies.

 

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View ASCPFC's Profile ASCPFC Flag Pro-Cathedral/caravan park 21 Mar 22 1.23pm Send a Private Message to ASCPFC Add ASCPFC as a friend

P & O can Piss Off as far as I'm concerned.

 


Red and Blue Army!

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View Grumbles's Profile Grumbles 23 Jun 22 10.45am Send a Private Message to Grumbles Add Grumbles as a friend

Has anyone else noticed, the Government stance:

* replacing P&O workers with agency staff = BAD
* replacing Rail workers with agency staff = GOOD

let's be consistent.

 

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croydon proud Flag Any european country i fancy! 23 Jun 22 1.55pm

Originally posted by Grumbles

Has anyone else noticed, the Government stance:

* replacing P&O workers with agency staff = BAD
* replacing Rail workers with agency staff = GOOD

let's be consistent.

The CONservatives are consistent - on having no idea what they are doing, , making up good stories on what they are going to do, only not checking out the cost or legality, but consistent!

 

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View cryrst's Profile cryrst Flag The garden of England 23 Jun 22 6.44pm Send a Private Message to cryrst Add cryrst as a friend

Originally posted by croydon proud

The CONservatives are consistent - on having no idea what they are doing, , making up good stories on what they are going to do, only not checking out the cost or legality, but consistent!

Ok

 

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