Unions turned up the heat on P&O and its partners by descending on the office of the company that helped hire a “scab workforce” to replace Scots workers.
The RMT and Nautilus unions accuse P&O of “capitalist banditry” and claim that letting them get away with the sacking of 800 seafarers would open the floodgates to other greedy firms.
Protestors followed up demos last week at UK ports, including Cairnryan, by mobbing the office of Clyde Marine Recruitment in Govan, Glasgow. They are demanding workers be reinstated.
The RMT’s Scottish organiser Gordon Martin has also called for the impounding of all P&O ships and boycott by the public.
He also said the unions would seek to blockade the firm’s Cairnryan base on April 8.
Several other unions, like GMB, Unison and EIS, gathered under the banner yesterday, seeking to define P&O as the rogue company that pushed things too far in eroding workers rights, amid a cost of living crisis.
Martin said: “Clyde Marine has been a facilitator for supplying a scab workforce to kill the jobs for Scottish workers. That’s why we are here today.
“This company has been a key part of the supply chain and they have profited as 800 workers in the UK had their jobs taken from them.
“We will not be leaving it here. We will be back at Clyde Marine and we will be visiting the Scottish Tories, as they are part of Tory efforts to kill the Trade Union movement in the UK.”
He added: “If P&O gets away with this, they will be coming for everyone else who believes in workers’ rights and fair pay and conditions.
“This is not even fire and rehire it’s just firing people when the jobs are still there. It is a disgrace and we will not allow it to happen.”
The P&O scandal erupted after it emerged foreign workers were being paid under £2 an hour to replace long serving UK staff.
The company’s chief executive Peter Hebblethwaite poured oil on the flames after telling a UK parliamentary committee that P&O intentionally broke UK employment law - and would do it again.
The bigwig - who faces a similar grilling at Holyrood today (TUES) - also refused to say he would refuse a big bonus from the company for being the hatchet man.
UK transport secretary Grant Shapps is tabling measures this week to prevent firms using fire-and-rehire tactics and to protect the minimum wage. He was yesterday holding discussions with rival operators DFDS and Stena Line today in a bid to avoid Easter chaos at UK ports.
MSP Monica Lennon said the public would be justified in boycotting P&O.
She said: “This company needs to be blacklisted. It is no surprise to me that people are choosing to walk away from P&O.
“Any company that treats its employees like this has no regard for the safety or wellbeing of the wider public.”
A spokesperson for Clyde Marine Recruitment emphatically denied being part of any plot to get rid of P&O’s Scottish workforce.
A spokesman said: “Clyde Marine Recruitment had no prior knowledge of P&O’s plan and, having worked with P&O for close to four decades, we fully appreciate the anger being felt by all of those affected.
“Several days before the announcement, Clyde Marine Recruitment were advised by P&O that they required an additional 18 crew for a specific vessel. Such requests are not unusual.
“A further 23 crew were requested by a 3rd party crew manager, International Ferry Management, for a RoRo ferry management project requiring UK seafarers. This is nowhere near the 800 crew we have been wrongly accused of providing.
“Clyde Marine Recruitment has assisted in finding over 15,000 positions for UK domiciled seafarers over the past five years, with every member of staff paid UK market rates.
“All agency staff supplied by Clyde Marine Recruitment to UK Ferry operators are paid the UK Living Wage, with many paid considerably more. We will continue to work tirelessly to support seafarers looking for positions with our clients.”
P&O’s European Causeway vessel is currently detained in Belfast over concerns about adequate training for the cut-price new crew.
