The safety of P&O ferries was questioned on Thursday as company bosses faced a grilling from MPs about sacking 800 staff and replacing them with cheap agency workers without warning.
P&O Ferries CEO Peter Hebblethwaite faced a barrage of criticism at the Transport Committee after he admitted staff paid an average of just £5.50 had been brought in to cover routes.
He also acknowledged that the decision to sack the workers last week without consulting the unions broke the law.
Mr Hebblethwaite told MPs there was “absolutely no doubt” that under UK employment law the firm was required to consult on making the mass cuts.
“We chose not to consult and we are, and will, compensate everybody in full for that,” he said.
He was met with laughter from MPs when he said one of the reasons they had not consulted was that “no union” would have accepted the job cuts plan. He added that a £36million compensation package had been put in place for sacked workers.
Mr Hebblethwaite, who said he is paid a basic salary of £325,000 a year plus performance related bonus, admitted that the newly employed seafarers received an hourly wage of £5.50 an hour. The lowest paid workers are on just £5.15 an hour. UK minimum wage will be £9.50 from April 1.
Tory MP Nusrat Ghani told the hearing that safety concerns had been raised to her by a newly hired agency worker on one ship.
She said: “They sent me a message which has given me a huge amount of anxiety. They said: ‘The safety of the vessel has not been considered.
“The crew that I am with have no knowledge of the vessel. The ship is currently in a situation whereby the engine could stop running as a crew do not know how to transfer fuel to them. This morning the vessel almost ran out of water.”
Staff were told in a video call it was their “final day of employment”, with someone refusing to leave their ships in protest.
Mr Hebblethwaite told the committee that the business would have closed if the decision was not taken and new staff were “very experienced, fully certified, professional international seafarers”.
Routes between Liverpool and Dublin are due to resume today with agency workers, he said.
Mick Lynch, general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT), told MPs that P&O Ferries “made flagrant breaches of the law”.
He said: “They’ve done it deliberately and they’ve factored in what they’re going to have to pay for it.”
He said the company is “threatening and blackmailing” its former employees, telling them they must sign a document or “you’ll potentially get no award whatsoever, and you have to give up all of your legal rights”.
