Displaying items by tag: Wins Awards

5th December 2022

P&O Ferries Wins Award Despite Mass Sackings Is 'Beyond Belief' Says the Rail, Maritime & Transport Union

The boss of a UK trade union has said it is “beyond belief” that a ferry firm which “unlawfully sacked 800 workers and has employed cheap agency labour to maximise profits is winning travel awards”.

P&O Ferries which earlier this year sparked outrage after firing without notice almost 800 staff and seafarers working on the Irish Sea, the Strait of Dover and North Sea, was named at the British Travel Awards as the best company for short sea/mini cruises.

Mick Lynch, general secretary of the Rail, Maritime & Transport (RMT) union said: “It is beyond belief that a company that unlawfully sacked 800 workers and has employed cheap agency labour to maximise profits is winning travel awards.

“The treatment of UK seafarers by P&O Ferries and their DP World owners was one of the worst acts of industrial vandalism ever seen in the industry.

He added “They should not be operating as a business in Britain and rather than receiving awards, P&O bosses should be handed jail sentences for what they did to our members.”

It was in March when P&O Ferries (owned and based in Dubai UAE) had sacked nearly 800 seafarers and replaced its crews with cheaper agency workers that took place on the Larne-Cairnyran and Dublin-Liverpool routes.

In addition the sackings involved the operator's network between the UK and France, on the short Dover-Calais run aswell to the UK-Netherlands with their longest route between Hull and Rotterdam.

A spokesman for the British Travel Awards said: “I can’t comment on an individual company’s policies.”

More from the Belfast Telegraph and P&O's tweet in response to winning an award category.

Published in Ferry

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About Conor O'Brien, Irish Circumnavigator

In 1923-25, Conor O'Brien became the first amateur skipper to circle the world south of the Great Capes. O'Brien's boat Saoirse was reputedly the first small boat (42-foot, 13 metres long) to sail around the world since Joshua Slocum completed his voyage in the 'Spray' during 1895 to 1898. It is a journey that O' Brien documented in his book Across Three Oceans. O'Brien's voyage began and ended at the Port of Foynes, County Limerick, Ireland, where he lived.

Saoirse, under O'Brien's command and with three crew, was the first yacht to circumnavigate the world by way of the three great capes: Cape Horn, Cape of Good Hope and Cape Leeuwin; and was the first boat flying the Irish tri-colour to enter many of the world's ports and harbours. He ran down his easting in the Roaring Forties and Furious Fifties between the years 1923 to 1925.

Up until O'Brien's circumnavigation, this route was the preserve of square-rigged grain ships taking part in the grain race from Australia to England via Cape Horn (also known as the clipper route).

At a Glance - Conor O'Brien's Circumnavigation

In June 1923, Limerick man Conor O’Brien set off on his yacht, the Saoirse — named after the then newly created Irish Free State — on the two-year voyage from Dun Laoghaire Harbour that was to make him the first Irish amateur to sail around the world.

June 1923 - Saoirse’s arrival in Madeira after her maiden passage out from Dublin Bay

2nd December 1924 - Saoirse crossed the longitude of Cape Horn

June 20th 1925 - O’Brien’s return to Dun Laoghaire Harbour