Mesmerising work by P&O Ferries, whose decision to sack 800 seafaring staff over a Microsoft Teams meeting makes them slightly more distasteful boat owners than several people on the international sanctions list. Indeed, for the duration of the HR chief’s message on Thursday, there may even have been people smugglers in the Channel who would have been more palatable. Certainly, they seem to operate some of the same routes more reliably.
And so to how the day unfolded. On Thursday morning, P&O Ferries recalled its vessels to port with the most ominous words in the shipping forecast – “all-colleague announcement” – promising that “long-term viability” was about to be secured. Sounds good! At which point, the human resources guy delivered a pre-recorded message from some kind of middle-management bunker, as though he were coordinating the resistance of a besieged eastern European country and not just avoiding having to look any of the staff in the eye when he tells them they’re being “restructured” with immediate effect. The former employees were informed their jobs would be promptly taken over by cheaper agency workers. Whether this is even legal is a matter of some debate; suffice to say the implications of the story continue to unfurl themselves like the petals of a stinking corpse lily.
Having made their peace with losing out on Employers of the Year 2022, P&O Ferries apparently followed up the video message by sending balaclava-wearing, handcuff-trained private security guards on to the boats to clear away all remaining … colleagues, is it? Some staff refused to leave their vessels but eventually dispersed when it was suggested that they were risking their severance. Justified outrage is apparently above their paygrade. Sorry – ex-paygrade.
Even the government seems appalled, while a lot of people have a lot of questions. None of which are, “Ooh, is that HR guy single?” For the video alone, he must be judged the worst person associated with ferries since Chris Grayling. (Although, as I know you’ll recall, Chris was more associated with firms that didn’t have any ferries. That was kind of the problem. All right, all right – one of the problems.)
I can tell you that a mere four months ago, a P&O honcho was on LinkedIn pushing a video celebrating the company as an employer who wanted to “do things differently”. As this uplifting film explained of working at the company – “It’s not just a job; it’s a career. It’s not just a job; it’s the future of seafaring. It’s not just a job; it’s family.” Righto. Unfortunately, it’s the Roy family. What a crew this is.
Dimly and belatedly realising that perhaps he ought to say something, P&O Ferries’ chief executive, Peter Hebblethwaite, wrote to staff on Friday morning, touching euphemistically on what he called “changes we’re making to our crewing model”. Why do people talk like this even in their employees’ hour of anguish? It’s not “changes to a crewing model” – it’s sacking them. I see he’s also claiming it is “essential” that staff “avoid posting any comments or views on social media”. So I’m happy to point out that Peter will be paid hundreds of thousands of pounds a year to be this much of a cowardly arse.
Of course, it’s not just Peter and the P&O family guys we see – in many ways they’re the monkeys as opposed to the organ-grinder. As you’d expect of any self-respecting island nation, Britain’s P&O Ferries is now owned by the Dubai-based DP World. Things we know about DP World? They have a £146m unpaid debt with the Merchant Navy Ratings pension fund, which is supposed to offer P&O Ferries staff security in their retirement. And they’ve also just spaffed £147m sponsoring golf’s European tour. Which seems a little on the nose, even by the debased standards of the age.
As for the age, it continues to feel not-as-billed. The movies might have led you to believe that late stage capitalism would feature a charismatically monstrous overlord, shot on a multimillion-dollar lighting budget. In fact, it’s just a HR guy reading off his Notes app, as he explains that your immediate financial devastation is “well beyond the statutory requirements”. Hard to imagine how this could have been more excruciating, unless he had prefaced it with a poem by Bono, as the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, did the same day in her St Patrick’s Day remarks.
Affectlessly aware that they can do whatever they want, executives like our HR guy talk like the hold music to the underworld. Perhaps appropriately. After all, in ancient Greek mythology, Charon the ferryman would carry the newly deceased souls across the River Styx. It was a fairly turbo-capitalist transit system itself, actually – if you didn’t have the fare you had to wander the shores for a hundred years, probably while a lot of spectral figures explained how you could easily have saved for a house deposit if you’d just had the drive to live a bit longer. Charon was described as a “sordid god” by Virgil (who was not the poet Bono is, but still quite good), though that was all thousands of years ago. These days, we should expect our passage to the other side to be helmed by someone very like our HR guy, probably droning “get in the hole” as he watches European tour highlights on his phone. Might as well start sucking it up, passengers – you’re a long time dead.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
