When this lousy war is over
Socialist Organiser1982 1982-07-22Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 5 →
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THE RETURN from the South Atlantic of the P&O liner Canberra was greeted last Monday with front page photographs and enthusiastic headlines like 'Canberra commandos sail home to carnival welcome' By the next day the carnival had turned sour for 129 of the Canberra's crew, who were promptly sacked by P&O. "It is an unhappy situation", confessed the tearful P&O director, 'but the fact is that we are in a highly competitive positiion"
Gradually the squalid facts came out.
P&O pays its non-British crews a pittance of only £77 to £80 a month. For years they have refused the seamen's union demand of parity for all seafarers, which would bring these mainly Indian and Chinese crewmen up to £74 a week, the rate for British sailors.
Apparently, when. the Falklands war started, P&O sacked their non-British crew members and sent them back to where they came from. They hired an all-British crew to replace them, although the non-British sailors volunteered to go to the South Atlantic. "Crushing the Argies" was to be an all. British affair.
Now that the war is over, it's back to naked exploitation. Again, P&O will look for a crew that they can hire at à quarter of the rate for the job.
It is not certain whether the crew who have now bèen sacked will be able to wear the newly-minted South Atlantic service medal on their trips to the dole office.