Thousands have taken to the streets today calling on P&O Ferries’ boss Peter Hebblethwaite to resign after the operator sacked 800 people last week.
Protesters across UK ports such as Liverpool, Dover and Hull rallied under the call of “Stop the P&O jobs Massacre.”
“If you are in Dover, Hull or Liverpool, join one of our protests against P&O sackings,” said union RMT.
The demonstrations come less than a day after the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) detained a P&O vessel in Northern Ireland as the ship was declared “unfit to sail.”
The European Causeway vessel was banned from restarting operations under the basis of “failures on crew familiarisation, vessel documentation and crew training” as instructed by transport secretary Grant Shapps.
“I will not compromise the safety of these vessels and P&O will not be able to rush inexperienced crew through training,” Shapps tweeted yesterday.
The government said on Tuesday it would instruct the MCA to carry out health and safety checks to make sure crews are “safety and properly trained.”
“If they are not, these ships will not sail,” Shapps told MPs on Tuesday. “It is important that we do have the resilience to ensure that goods are able to flow but that cannot be done through crews who have not been properly trained to do the job to the highest of standards.”
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