Job losses in Hull as P&O looks to make more than 1,000 redundancies

The proposal involves more than a quarter of the workforce losing their jobs.

P&O is understood to be looking at making 122 Seafarer Ratings on the Hull-Zeebrugge and Hull-Rotterdam routes redundant along with 614 Ratings on Dover-Calais.

The remainder affected are officers and shore-side staff on the same routes.

RMT General Secretary Mick Cash said it was a "kick in the teeth" for the seafarers, who had maintained key supply lines to the UK during the pandemic.

Mr Cash said it was "utterly shameful" that P&O had been kept afloat by the union's members and the taxpayer and accused the company of "cooking up plans to permanently replace UK seafarers with low cost seafarers from thousands of miles away".

He said the union would fight the proposals "tooth and nail", adding: "This is an attack on British seafarers, crew and the biggest fear is that these jobs will never return to Dover or Hull."

It comes a fortnight after P&O Ferries revealed two cruise-ferries from Hull were being laid up and hundreds more staff were being furloughed.

Pride of York and Pride of Bruges were taken off the Hull-Zeebrugge route, following the collapse in passenger numbers as a result of the coronavirus lockdown.

The firm had asked the UK government for £150m of support for its operations, as well as funding from its shareholder DP World and unions, totalling £257.5m, to safeguard jobs and the viability of the business.

A spokesman for P&O Ferries said: "Since the beginning of the crisis, P&O Ferries has been working with its stakeholders to address the impact of the loss of the passenger business.

"It is now clear that right-sizing the business is necessary to create a viable and sustainable P&O Ferries to get through Covid-19.

"Regrettably, therefore, due to the reduced number of vessels we are operating and the ongoing downturn in business, we are beginning consultation proceedings with a proposal to make around 1,100 of our colleagues redundant."