A Malta-registered company established just four weeks ago is supplying UK-based ferry company P&O with replacement staff after it sacked 800 workers with immediate effect, UK media has reported. 

P&O Ferries has turned to the Ta’ Xbiex-based International Ferry Management Ltd. to fill crew positions left vacant by its shock decision to axe a quarter of its workforce with immediate effect.

International Ferry Management Ltd. has a sole registered shareholder, Antonio Ciriale, and was set up on February 11 of this year. 

Ciriale featured in the Paradise Papers offshore data leak published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists as the director of another Malta-registered company. 

According to the Daily Mail, International Ferry Management Ltd. is providing P&O with staff being paid “as little as £2.60 (€3.10) an hour” and who are unfamiliar with the ferry ships. 

A representative of the country's National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers told the UK media outlet that P&O Ferries was turning its vessels into "modern-day slave ships". 

The temporary workers would also need clearance before they could sail, Billy Jones, branch secretary for Humber Shipping for the union, said.

"There's still a P&O crew on board, a skeleton crew to make sure they don't take the ship away," Jones said.  

P&O, which is based in the southern English port of Dover and operates four routes serving Britain, France, Ireland and the Netherlands, sacked 800 workers in an attempt to save cash and stay afloat. 

"We are providing 800 seafarers with immediate severance notices," the company owned by DP World said in a bombshell statement.

The company was badly hit over the last two years by the Covid pandemic, which ravaged the travel sector with multiple lockdowns and travel restrictions.

French media has reported that all the 800 workers sacked are British and that French workers are unaffected. The company’s long-term plan is to replace sacked workers with cheaper Colombian crew workers, according to a French union source.

Security agents later escorted affected P&O personnel from Dover facilities, while 100 Colombians and 40 temporary workers boarded the group's ferries that were stationed there, the source added.

'Wholly unacceptable'

The company's move brought cross-party condemnation. 

Protests were held on Friday in the English port cities of Dover, Hull and Liverpool on Friday. On the south coast in Dover, angry demonstrators chanted "save our seafarers," "stop the dismantling of jobs at P&O" and "resist all job cuts".  Images have since emerged of security guards scaling P&O ships to remove staff who were outraged over the dismissals and refused to disembark from company ships. 

Transport minister Robert Courts told parliament that the way staff had been treated was "wholly unacceptable".

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the government was seeking urgent talks with the company, which justified its move because it was facing a £100 million ($131 million, 119 million euro) loss, making its business unviable.

The main opposition Labour party's transport spokeswoman, Louise Haigh, said the company was "beneath contempt" but said it was the "cruel consequence" of the Conservative government's failure to outlaw "fire and rehire" practices.

Protesters in Dover. Photo: AFP

P&O said its losses had been covered by DP World but the situation was "not sustainable".

"Our survival is dependent on making swift and significant changes now. Without these changes there is no future for P&O Ferries," it added.

The company was forced to take "a very difficult but necessary decision... after seriously considering all the available options".

P&O has assured it was not heading for liquidation after ordering all ships to return to dock.

The RMT union added that security guards with handcuffs had been seeking to board ships in Dover to remove crew members.

Staff 'fuming' 

Police were meanwhile forced to intervene when dozens of P&O staff blocked a key road leading to Dover after P&O buses carrying agency workers appeared at the port.

"I'm fuming, to be honest with you," said one 54-year-old engine room worker, who has been with P&O since the 1980s, angry at how staff were told.

"This is no way to treat people. It was just a short message this morning saying you've all lost a job, basically -- all this service for nothing."

Elsewhere, sailors in the northern English port of Hull refused to leave their P&O vessel 'The Pride Of Hull', according to local lawmaker Karl Turner, who called the company's actions "disgraceful".

 'Fire and rehire'

Britain's biggest public sector union Unite urged P&O to reconsider the "savage" decision "to dismiss its entire UK seafaring workforce to replace them with cheaper labour".

Although its members are not affected, it said it was a "very concerning signal" that UK labour contracts were "under attack".

Transport workers' trade union TSSA also lashed out, adding P&O had encouraged staff to re-apply for agency work under what it described as a "fire and rehire" policy.

"This is absolutely despicable behaviour from P&O, designed to reduce pay, and worsen terms and conditions for their staff," said TSSA general secretary Manuel Cortes.

"They should be ashamed of themselves, treating loyal and hardworking staff like this."

He added: "In any civilised country these actions would not only be unlawful but punishable in the harshest possible terms. Sadly, I doubt the Tory government will lift even their little finger to ensure this happens."