Agency workers aboard a P&O ferry make less than £3 an hour and have to live on the ship for months at a time, it has been alleged. The largely Filipino crew on P&O’s superferry, the Pride of Rotterdam, are employed on six-month contracts through an agency, with no guarantee of returning.
A P&O source, who wished to remain anonymous, said the agency staff made between roughly £916 and £1,298 a month, equating to less than £3 an hour on their 11-hour day, seven days a week rota. Now Hull East MP Karl Turner has described the working conditions as like the crew living on a ‘floating prison’.
P&O have not responded to a request to comment on the allegations, reports HullLive. The allegations were made as Hull Live went on board P&O’s first sailing from the port city since bosses sacked 800 workers by video on March 17. The move was slammed by staff, unions, MPs and led to calls for a boycott of the Dubai-owned company and a backlash against the established brand.
Of those sacked, 82 were employed on the Pride of Hull where staff will be replaced with agency workers expected to be on similar conditions as those on sister vessel the Pride of Rotterdam. One crew member said agency staff received accommodation and were fed in conditions which were acceptable to them, including onboard crew bars, launderettes and gyms.
He added agency crews made roughly four times what they could earn in the Philippines and they could work split shifts with around four hours off during the day. These claims were supported by the RMT union which represents many of those sacked by P&O.
Sources told Hull Live about nine out of 10 crew on the Pride of Rotterdam were contracted agency workers from the Philippines, earning between £3 and £5 an hour, on 12-hour days for seven days a week for a six-month contract. He added crew could leave the boat while it was moored but they were not allowed to take a weekend off, which was usually standard practice.
The crew member said: “In any industry if you know your colleagues and they know your weakness you can work round that, it is the job of managers to do that, but how can you do or manage that if possibly the crew change all the time. The conditions for all staff on the boat are great, this is not the problem. How can a ship operate in times of emergencies if the crew do not know and understand each other, it’s absolute nonsense.
“Within the crew the social life is good, it honestly is, or was, a big family. The ships were all happy places. You cannot do this job unless you want to, the CEO has ripped the heart out of P&O.”
The worker said the ship’s officers, predominantly Dutch with some English workers, worked two weeks on and two weeks off. Condemning the conditions and pay for agency staff, Hull East MP Karl Turner said: “Agency crew on the Pride of Rotterdam literally go to and from Rotterdam as prisoners in their crew cabins. Their terms of employment are appalling."
Meanwhile, a P&O ferries vessel is being detained, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) has said after undertaking a safety inspection. The MCA said it was “in the process” of holding The Pride of Kent on Monday.
A spokesperson for the MCA said: “Our surveyors are in the process of detaining the Pride of Kent. We are awaiting confirmation of all the detainable items.” Transport Secretary Grant Shapps confirmed the news in a tweet, adding that the ship was being held following an inspection and that “safety will not be compromised”.
It follows the detention of another P&O vessel which was held in the Northern Ireland port of Larne on Friday due to “failures on crew familiarisation, vessel documentation and crew training”. The Rail, Maritime and Transport union said it believed the MCA acted because of “multiple safety and operational breaches”, including the wearing of breathing apparatus.
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