P&O staff have been treated disgracefully – the government must act

Editorial: Ferry staff sackings are not only morally wrong but bad for business and bad for capitalism

P&O Ferries carried out a mass sacking of 800 staff and after they were told of their redundancies they were forced off the vessels (PA)

Government ministers have lined up to condemn P&O Ferries for the “appalling”, “brutal” and “completely unacceptable” way in which it sacked 800 workers, intending to replace them with cheaper foreign agency staff. When a Conservative government expresses itself so forcefully, it is apparent that the company’s behaviour goes well beyond the normal differences of opinion about employment ethics.

The evident anger of Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, and Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, not to mention Robert Courts, the junior transport minister hauled to the House of Commons on Thursday to account for the government, echoes the sentiment of Edward Heath, the Conservative prime minister, when he described the sharp business practices of Tiny Rowland as “the unpleasant and unacceptable face of capitalism” in 1973.

The abrupt and callous way in which P&O’s workers have been treated crosses a moral threshold, whether or not it is illegal. Presumably the company thinks it can defend itself in court, although on the face of things it seems to have broken the law on redundancies. Either way, the company is guilty of exceptionally poor management.