P&O Ferries – One Year Since Staff Dismissal

That the Parliament recalls what it considers to be P&O Ferries’ scandalous dismissal of 786 directly-employed UK seafarers on 17 March 2022, including Ratings and Officers directly employed on the Bahamas-flagged ferries, European Causeway and European Highlander, on the Cairnryan to Larne route, where, it understands, over 100 Ratings jobs are now held by international agency crew and most of whom are paid minimum wage for six-week voyage-only contracts; notes the view of the maritime trade unions that rostering seafarers to work 12-hour days, seven days a week, for more than two weeks, causes fatigue and, therefore, poses an increased risk to maritime safety; supports the reported terms and conditions of a collective bargaining agreement for seafarers working for Stena Line on the Cairnryan to Belfast route; notes that the Port of Cairnryan is owned by a company that is part of the P&O Ferries group; supports the calls from the RMT and Nautilus International for mandatory sectoral bargaining through fair pay agreements for seafarers in the ferry industry in Scotland and the UK, and calls on the Scottish Government to work with the trade unions, in 2023 and beyond, to protect seafarer jobs and ferry services in Scotland from what it sees as P&O Ferries’ undercutting of pay, roster patterns and wider conditions.