29 August 2025
RMT Press Office:
SEAFARERS union RMT said today that the resignation of P&O Ferries chief executive Peter Hebblethwaite, who sacked around 800 workers in 2022 and replaced them with cheap agency labour, as someone who had effectively left the scene of a crime.
Mr Hebblethwaite became Britain's most hated boss when P&O Ferries - a subsidiary of the giant Dubai-based ports operator DP World - sacked 800 staff with immediate effect via a video message.
The Insolvency Service is still investigating P&O for civil offences committed under Hebblethwaite’s callous watch, so workers still have some hope that he will be punished for such a pre-meditated assault on seafarer jobs and communities.
RMT general secretary Eddie Dempsey described him as a “corporate pirate” who told MPs that he knew he was breaking the law when he unlawfully dismissed and replaced 786 UK seafarers, and that he would do so again.
“We’re looking forward to a Hebblethwaite-free ferry industry where mandatory seafarer employment conditions, agreed with trade unions, are enforced and this corporate hatchet man is dumped in the bin of history,” he said.
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Tagged with: RMT, Eddie Dempsey, P&O Ferries, Peter Hebblethwaite, Seafarers, Maritime
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