On 17 March 2022, P&O Ferries sacked 800 British ferry crew via video message, to replace with agency staff, after informing workers to return to the port and await a ‘major announcement’.

Security staff were preparing to remove workers from ships in Dover and Larne, and Belfast, after unions instructed crew not to leave. Workers allege they were 'treated like criminals' by security, who reportedly gave them two hours to pack their belongings in black bin bags, and kept a watchful eye, as if the workers intended to steal. Coaches carrying replacement agency staff were reported to be standing by at Dover and Hull.

On 18 March 2022, RMT reported P&O replacement crew faced receiving poverty pay, with ships on the Liverpool-Dubin route hiring Filipino workers on contracts paying below minimum wage. On 21 March the RMT union announced that P&O ferry crews in Dover had been replaced by Indian seafarers paid £1.80 an hour.

RMT criticised UK employment law for ‘allowing' ‘incentivising’ the mass dismissal and below-minimum wage pay, as shipping companies registered in other countries and operating routes from UK ports to Europe are able to pay below the minimum wage, because they are exempt from legislation. Commentators have also questioned the lawfulness of P&O’s actions under UK employment law, noting the lack of consultation with staff or union representatives. P&O staff employed under French law, which contains rigorous criteria that companies must meet when laying off workers, have not been dismissed.

RMT urged the UK Government to look into legal options to reinstate the sacked workers, in what they called ‘one of the most shameful acts in the history of British industrial relations’.

In August 2022, the Insolvency Service, a government agency, ruled that P&O would not face criminal proceedings over the mass-sacking of workers.

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