Shipping company P&O Ferris, which specializes in ties between Calais and Dover, announced on Thursday that it had fired 800 sailors, believing the company’s “survival” was in jeopardy and causing outrage in the United Kingdom. “P&O ferries are not a lucrative business. We lost 100 100 million (approximately ദ 120 million) over the course of the year, and our parent company, DP World, justified the company in a press release sent to AFP by a Dubai-based port operator: “Our survival depends on rapid and significant change.” , It suffered greatly from the pandemic and the elimination of tourism and international travel.

Instead Colombian sailors and temporary workers

The decision to lay off 800 sailors out of a total of 3,000 employees was “very difficult but necessary” and was taken “after considering all the options seriously,” P&O added, adding that their origins are 180 years old. Headquartered in Dover, England, it operates routes between France, Great Britain, Ireland and the Netherlands, claiming 10 million passengers a year.

In Calais, the local management of the P&O Ferries had earlier announced during the Extraordinary Socio-Economic Committee (CSE) the “dismissal of 800 British sailors” to be replaced by “a 50% reduction in the salaries of Colombian sailors and temporary workers”. , According to a union source AFP.