Joan McAlpine: Punish cruelty and arrogance of P&O where it matters, on the bottom line

It cannot be legal. That was the first thought when P&O sacked its staff without notice and hired international replacements far below the minimum wage. They were sacked on Zoom. How very 2022. How utterly callous.

Turns out it wasn’t. Legal, that is and their own chief executive Peter Hebblethwaite admitted as much to aghast MPs on Thursday when he told them: “There’s absolutely no doubt we were required to consult the unions. We chose not to.” A salary is no indicator of intelligence but, with him earning £325,000 a year plus bonuses, let’s assume Hebblethwaite thought about it before blithely boasting to MPs about breaking the law. We can assume he did not fear the consequences because he didn’t expect any.

Now the ferry side of its business may have been facing losses, like many other companies but P&O’s Dubai-based parent company, DP World, made profits of almost £3 billion last year which, incidentally, didn’t stop it picking up UK Government Covid grants of £15 million.

Whatever its financial position, any company claiming it cannot function unless it pays staff less than £5.15 an hour has no right to continue. If you can only operate by trashing your workforce, then exit the corporate stage and let someone else have a go.

As it happens, the day Hepplethwaite appeared before MPs, I completed a “Fair Work Assessment” on behalf of the small charity I run. Unlike P&O, we do not have revenue running into the millions (billions in the case of its parent company) but I was proud to say we pay the real living wage (£9.90 per hour). We could, plausibly, have argued we cannot afford it but no business can morally make that argument.

In Scotland, paying the real living wage is often a condition of government support. It will soon be expected of every company winning a public contract. The UK Government has not gone that far but it has raised the minimum wage and often talks of this with great pride. This was extended to include seafarers in 2020, although a loophole means those on international routes do not benefit.

It is P&O’s brazen exploitation of this loophole that has taken so many aback. Grant Shapps, the UK Transport Secretary, promises action this week but it is unclear whether any legislation would get 800 workers their jobs back. He could, however, hit P&O where it hurts – smack bang on the bottom line. DP World is set to benefit significantly from the establishment of freeports, the crown jewels of post-Brexit policy.

Through a complex series of holdings, the owners of DP World, and therefore P&O, are Dubai’s royal family.

Their man, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, is DP World’s boss and also runs Jebel Ali port, one of the world’s biggest free trade zones. Here, companies operate unhindered by regulations and taxes. It too is owned by the royal family who reward the Sultan generously – he is said to earn £5 million a year.

DP World also owns UK ports, including London Gateway and Southampton. Because of this, it will receive huge Freeport set-up grants of £25m per site – taxpayers’ money being stuffed into the already bulging pockets of the Emirati elite. That’s just the start. As owners of these honeypots, they will benefit from all the tax-free revenues their ports generate.

If the government is serious about punishing P&O, it should not be entering into a sordid partnership which profits such owners. The company should be sent packing, not rewarded.

Ironically, Freeports were central to the levelling-up agenda. In this case, the sultans of sting move up a level, while their workers get pushed under water.

Joan McAlpine is a journalist, commentator and former MSP.