P&O sacked 800 employees yesterday via video to replace them with "cheaper agency staff". The employees were told yesterday that it was their "final day of employment". Some of these employees have been with the Company their whole life.
P&O have the resources to do what is needed and follow the relevant processes in their simplest form:
- Inform
- Warn
- Consult.
I am still in complete disbelief that a company has disregarded all employment law and treated its staff in such a way when on their own website it states that its vision is to “lead the industry in setting the standards for best practice in wellbeing”, well that clearly isn’t true is it!
Now, you don’t need to be a lawyer or a HR professional to know that the approach taken by P&O is totally wrong. Not only did they fail to complete any sort of redundancy process, but they could have potentially also breached a number of employees contracts of employment in respect of the provision of notice. I do not know the ins and outs of the contractual terms for the employees concerned, but consideration needs to be given as to whether P&O were able to terminate with immediate effect and pay the employees in lieu of notice? Otherwise not only is it unfair dismissal but also a potential breach of contract depending upon the terms. Emma-Louise Hewitt
Owing to the numbers concerned, P&O needed to inform the Redundancy Payments Service and then undertake a collective consultation process with the unions/employee representatives/employees. There are minimum periods before the first dismissal can take place depending upon the numbers involved and this clearly was not done despite having the resources to do so.
Whilst P&O suggested in the video that a "generous severance package" was going to be offered, no details were given. Any severance package offered would more likely than not be wrapped up in a settlement agreement. This is a legally binding document where the employee forgoes their rights to bring claims against their employer in the employment tribunal, in exchange for some form of consideration. This is usually an amount of compensation to be paid to the employee.
I would suggest that any severance packages offered to those employees affected here would need to be extremely generous including a sum of money equivalent to a protective award which, can be up to 90 days full pay for each affected employee.
These failures will cost them dearly, not only financially but in reputation too.
Don't be like P&O - Do it right!
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