Not being able to sack workers without good reason has long been a problem for some businesses. As has having to give people paid leave to go on holiday and extended time off when they have a child. Companies have also not been able to increase their profits by paying people unequally and less than the minimum wage.

Despite us all being used to these rights in this country, they have been challenged, not least by those companies that are used to operating in other parts of the world where workers’ rights don’t get in the way of making huge profits.

The disparity between what we expect as workers in this country and how companies want to be able to treat workers was brought into sharp focus when the owners of P&O ferries decided it would sack 800 experienced employees and hire cheaper agency workers this month.

The Dubai link

P&O Ferries is owned by DP World, formed in 2005 by the merger of Dubai Ports Authority and Dubai Ports International. According to many observers, Dubai is one of those countries where companies can make huge profits by treating their workforce in a way that would be unlawful in the UK.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has highlighted many human rights breaches in Dubai. As long ago as 2006, their report on the exploitation of migrant construction workers across the United Arab Emirates, entitled Building Towers, Cheating Workers, described the ‘less than humane’ conditions some 250,000 foreign labourers in the city were forced to live in.

The report describes working conditions that are ‘hazardous to the point of deadly’. Whilst UAE federal labour law offers several protections, the report from HRW points out that for migrant construction workers, these laws are largely unenforced. A loophole gleefully exploited by burgeoning self-wealth creators.

Allegations of abuses against foreign workers continue in the UAE capital. Claims that workers who built Dubai’s Expo 2020 site have faced exploitation and abuses were highlighted by the London-based labour rights group Equidem.

They claim workers were forced to pay illegal recruitment fees to get their job, were held in debt bondage, suffered racism and discrimination alongside working ‘like slaves’ to build and run the Dubai 2020 exhibition.

So, should we be surprised when seemingly unlawful practices become part of our industrial environment when so many UK industries and services owners are now located outside the UK? With fewer safeguards of workers’ rights, now we are outside the EU, should we all prepare for these practices in our workplaces?

The B-word

So is Brexit to blame? The answer is not quite. When we left the EU, it became easier for the Government to change workers’ rights. Many businesses will be paying to lobby the government to take away workers' rights. This has not yet happened.

However, DP World will not have taken their P&O gamble lightly. They know that Britain, coming out of a pandemic, ravaged by inflation, energy costs and cut adrift from its nearest and largest trading partner, is not in a solid position to complain or take action against more financially powerful countries. 

It’s very likely that DP World considered what sanctions may be imposed on them by a weakened UK government and thought their odds were good. Whilst they may get individual unfair dismissal claims through the employment tribunal, it will work out cheaper, in the long run, to pay agency workers if the Government does not also act.

Whilst unions have called for a boycott of P&O ferries, and Labour urges the business secretary to launch legal action against P&O ferries, action by the government is unlikely, considering that Dubai’s ruling royal family ultimately owns DP World. 

Only days ago, the prime minister, Boris Johnson, was in Dubai meeting with the rulers of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to increase oil supplies in the wake of the war in Ukraine.

Many observers believe that as Britain becomes more isolated from the protection of the EU, more pressure will be put on UK workers by organisations seeking to maximise profit over the rights we have all enjoyed for decades.

If you would like to take action over these or other employment issues, visit www.findothers.com.