PM says P&O broke the law and encourages employees to take action
In today’s PMQs the matter on everyone’s minds is P&O and their brutal sacking of 800 staff last week via an unannounced video message.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer opened the session by raising this issue alongside the new agency workers being paid well under minimum wage.
He asked: “If the prime minister can’t stop that, what is the point of his government?”
In reply, Boris Johnson said he “condemns the callous behaviour of P&O”, adding that it is “no way to treat hard-working employees”.
He stated that the government will “not sit by” as he believes the company has broken the law and could face fines of millions of pounds.
The prime minister then added that he found out about the sackings on the day at the same time as the public.
He added that the main issue was that the government was not notified 45 days before the sacking that it would be taking place.
Another controversy surrounding P&O at the moment is reported that the agency workers will only be paodpaid £1.81 an hour.
Starmer brought up this issue in the commons, stating it is “not illegal” to pay seafarers below minimum wage, even if they were working at UK ports.
He said despite promises of a review two years ago, the government has done nothing to fix this “gap in the law”.
The prime minister said the government will work to “address the defects” in the 1999 legislation governing the minimum wage.
He added ministers will make sure every employee in the UK’s exclusive economic zone will get the UK minimum wage.
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