DHB JOB CUTS/Rough tough conditions for Man on a Wire.
13 August 2008
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In a sudden and unexpected move Dover Harbour Board have announced that one third of their workforce are to be let go. It is understood that the job losses will be close to 200. The jobs instead will be put out to tender. DHB with an eye on a visionary future have decided this is the route they want to take. They will leave the day to day running of some aspects of their portfolio, such as the Tug Boat operation, to outside contractors. This has caused widespread upset and our local MP Gwyn Prosser was quick to issue a statement which you can see below. That's Gwyn in the picture on the left speaking about the issue on the BBC TV News last night. Add your Comment below. See Blue Bar.
Gwyn Prosser's statement.....
MP SAYS DOVER HARBOUR BOARD’S ACTION IS A BETRAYAL OF THEIR LOYAL WORKFORCE
Dover’s MP, Gwyn Prosser, says that Dover Harbour Board’s decision to ditch a third of their work force without the normal process of negotiation is a betrayal of the hard working men and women who have served the Port of Dover and the out sourcing of services could impact on safety.
Speaking after DHB’s announcement Gwyn said:
“As a former officer on Dover’s Cross Channel Ferries I’m very much aware of the important role played by the berthing gangs, the tug drivers and the security officers and the hiving-off of these services to private operators will impact negatively on employees conditions of service and on safety. The much vaunted employment protections of transfers under the TUPE agreement are very limited. They seldom extend beyond 12 months or provide guaranteed proper pension provisions.
“The local union reps and the work force has worked tirelessly to co-operate with DHB and agree flexible and efficient work patterns over the years and it beggars belief that that they should be rewarded with this unilateral Board decision to terminate their employment. The Dover Harbour Board’s action is a betrayal of their loyal workforce”
Mr Prosser has discussed the plans with DHB’s Chief Executive, Bob Goldfield and with the local trade union convener, Gary Punton and he will be having further meetings with officials of Unite later in the week. * * *
Dover Wednesday 13 Aug:The picture above shows the helicopter rescue guys in action in bright but atrocious conditions, with harrowing gale force winds, a sight we may have seen many times but this time it aint no exercise! If you look carefully you can see a man/woman dangling at 100 ft below the helicopter in a life endangering situation. The shot isnt of the greatest quality as it was all happening several miles off and again worth mentioning... in the teeth of the gale. How brave these service personnel are.
The picture on the left shows the Norfolkline vessel taking a pounding in terrible conditions and struggling to get safely into harbour. Because the conditions are so bad we believe a cruise liner had to be diverted to Tilbury but no such luxuries for the humble daily grinding ferry. This is certainly the roughest summer for sea travel I remember. Must be quite a shock for the travelling landlubber.
PaulB
For A Level report click Open Letters Page in menu on left.
DHB to cut up to one third of workforce.
See the New Comments below.In a sudden and unexpected move Dover Harbour Board have announced that one third of their workforce are to be let go. It is understood that the job losses will be close to 200. The jobs instead will be put out to tender. DHB with an eye on a visionary future have decided this is the route they want to take. They will leave the day to day running of some aspects of their portfolio, such as the Tug Boat operation, to outside contractors. This has caused widespread upset and our local MP Gwyn Prosser was quick to issue a statement which you can see below. That's Gwyn in the picture on the left speaking about the issue on the BBC TV News last night.
Gwyn Prosser's statement.....
MP SAYS DOVER HARBOUR BOARD’S ACTION IS A BETRAYAL OF THEIR LOYAL WORKFORCE
Dover’s MP, Gwyn Prosser, says that Dover Harbour Board’s decision to ditch a third of their work force without the normal process of negotiation is a betrayal of the hard working men and women who have served the Port of Dover and the out sourcing of services could impact on safety.
Speaking after DHB’s announcement Gwyn said:
“As a former officer on Dover’s Cross Channel Ferries I’m very much aware of the important role played by the berthing gangs, the tug drivers and the security officers and the hiving-off of these services to private operators will impact negatively on employees conditions of service and on safety. The much vaunted employment protections of transfers under the TUPE agreement are very limited. They seldom extend beyond 12 months or provide guaranteed proper pension provisions.
“The local union reps and the work force has worked tirelessly to co-operate with DHB and agree flexible and efficient work patterns over the years and it beggars belief that that they should be rewarded with this unilateral Board decision to terminate their employment. The Dover Harbour Board’s action is a betrayal of their loyal workforce”
Mr Prosser has discussed the plans with DHB’s Chief Executive, Bob Goldfield and with the local trade union convener, Gary Punton and he will be having further meetings with officials of Unite later in the week.
Man dangles 100ft below Helicopter in tough conditions.
Dover Wednesday 13 Aug:The picture above shows the helicopter rescue guys in action in bright but atrocious conditions, with harrowing gale force winds, a sight we may have seen many times but this time it aint no exercise! If you look carefully you can see a man/woman dangling at 100 ft below the helicopter in a life endangering situation. The shot isnt of the greatest quality as it was all happening several miles off and again worth mentioning... in the teeth of the gale. How brave these service personnel are.The picture on the left shows the Norfolkline vessel taking a pounding in terrible conditions and struggling to get safely into harbour. Because the conditions are so bad we believe a cruise liner had to be diverted to Tilbury but no such luxuries for the humble daily grinding ferry. This is certainly the roughest summer for sea travel I remember. Must be quite a shock for the travelling landlubber.
PaulB
- Well Done PaulB in spotting the 'dangling man', Jeez that looks a bit hairy, a very brave person attached the other end of that rope, any update with reference to further info?
- What a super photo.I'm sure that will turn up in one of the local rags next week.
The things some people will do to evade Immigration and Customs control...lol
Headline''Illegal immigrants find a new and novel way of sneaking into the UK''. - Oh my that looks hairy brave person who ever it was know its there job, but would still need some guts thats for sure good picture
- This has been on the grapevine for a while now, it's shocking that DHB are dropping their loyal workforce, but as we see in so many cases a proportion of the previous employees will be employed on a temporary contract with no permanent hours, so no guaranteed weekly wage, with no holiday pay, sickness or pension. No one cares about anybody anymore, very sad .........
- they seem to care the same about their workforce as they do the town.
- "DHB with an eye on a visionary future have decided this is the route they want to take."...............who wrote this nonsense?
- Me, Phil. - If you'd like to tell me whats wrong with it I would be happy to listen.
This as I understand it is the way DHB are viewing how they do things in fiuture. They are delegating outwards so that they can concentrate on their future core development. This isnt my view but how it was presented. - Oh this is awful. Does this mean the affected will have to reapply for their own jobs to the new contractors? What happens to their standing terms and conditions, will they transfer?
- From what I hear they will have to reapply for their old jobs when advertised by the new contractor with no standing terms & conditions being transfered.
- Yes its a very unfortunate situation when people have to re-apply for their old jobs. Phil yes I would imagine the standing terms and conditions and/or pensions and whatever would be affected and I think that's what brought about MP Gwyn Prosser's fast and unhappy response. As a former seaman he is sympathetic to the situation, as we can see from his press release. But although he is meeting with Unions Officials its hard to see what can be done.
- It sickens me this kind of disregard for the locality and people in general. You are right in that employees will have to sign up to another contract after 90 days that will no doubt be a ‘no frills’ insult to their previous service. The positions will then be filled by people on a minimum wage; on temporary contracts; with no job security and no means of progression or aspiration. However someone else (probably in a suit) will be rubbing their hands together.
Of course none of the workforce will be able to make a stand against this contempt shown for them. Firstly because people who make any kind of stand (even if 100% ethical) are arrested. Secondly people are enslaved by the high cost of living and mortgages making it impossible to do anything other than accept this abuse of the working man.
This absolute travesty of one of the few bastions of prosperity in Dover just another example of how society is being driven from the top down. People will still try to tell you we now live in a classless society, they are of course lying or seriously deluded. People associated with DHB will get richer from this ‘visionary future’ but the people working at ground level (almost all local people) will have the few rights and securities they had taken away, with the structures existing between the top and bottom being eroded.
It seems to be a recurring topic on this forum and one I always jump to discuss. Whether school dinners, public services (or at least those that should be public) or housing. If people do not feel any kind of prospects or security we will never buck this trend of apparent apathy towards society. Why should people subscribe the notion of investing in a system i.e. community, their employer or other people, when these investments are not reciprocated.
People moan about customer service at Tesco, OK the wage is relatively good, but the employees don’t give stuff about what they do or what they sell (I am genuinely insulted by the quality of what they call ‘meat’). Compare this to a family run business in a town centre, there is a vested interest and this permeates to the customer and through the quality of goods. None of this is coincidence and if politicians want to set about fixing our broken society, they should start with addressing this fundamental abuse of the proletariat (I’m going to use that unfashionable term because I’m angry)
Although for the reasons stated above we will not see the DHB workers strike for the reasons I have listed above, I would certainly support them. The French cause such massive disruption (with results) by their acts of solidarity, it is no wonder the French still have a sense of community and society. I would stand by any reasonable acts by the DHB workers to see the protection of the rights outlined in their current contracts. It would be impossible for the powers that be to substitute the entire semi-skilled workforce and this would be a major statement in solidarity. But as I said it doesn’t happen anymore and the reality will be that these reforms just happen and people will have to accept it, in the same way we accept everything else.
- Good to have such an excellent post DT. Very interesting indeed.
- DHB have made a commercial decision and its as simple as that. Such decisions are made daily by all enterprises. We are indeed in difficult times and businesses must make sure they are efficiently and cost effectively run. Its the same for public bodies.
Yes, you can feel sorrry and sympathise with individuals who lose their jobs. Hopefully they will not be out of work for long.
It does not matter wheth, for instance, a tug boat crew, are employed by DHB or a sub-contracting firm at the end of the day. What is important for DHB is that the job is done well and properly, and cost effectively.
DHB is not a social service, it is a commercially run organisation and they will do no-one any favours if they forget that.
OK I sound hard but it is a hard commercial world out there and we forget that at our peril. - DHB are hardly running at a loss!
DHB Boss 1: “Right we’ve moved a building 6metres because it was in the wrong place due to poor forward planning; we need to get rid of some more of this cash!”
DHB Boss 2: “Oh I know let’s build a social club to get rid of some of that extra cash, that will show us to be real philanthropists, committed to the community.”
DHB Boss 1: “Great...wait we haven’t spent enough, even after spending a huge amount on the design of this portal frame monstrosity on an industrial estate.”
DHB Boss 2: “I know let’s put in stained glass windows at the front, I’ve heard they’re expensive!
DHB Boss 1: “Great! Fancy another caviar smoothy?”
They do owe us a favour, with the huge amounts of money flowing though the port every day and prosperity failing to reach the town centre ironically due to the infrastructural element that feeds the port (the A20). The good jobs provided by DHB are the least compensation or ‘investment’ that should be offered for this exploitation, based upon an 400 year old agreement! And yes it does matter that these people will be sub-contracted, as the supplement that once existed to their wages will now go to the contract holder, who will pay the worker the minimum wage and treat them as an object rather than a person with a family or mortgage, that can disposed of at will! The gap between those with and those without gets bigger every day.
No DHB are not a social service, but the powers that be seemingly have no sense of duty, responsibility or regard for those people that have aided them to this point. It’s funny how it is possible to assign these same ‘strategic’ traits to people and we have individuals that are simply not interested in communities, society or even families. Yes, have you’re fetes at the charming Connaught Park, dances at the beautiful town hall and horticultural shows in our town centre but eventually no one will turn up because they are too busy cost effectively running their lives. “You can get those flowers at B&Q cheaper.” They will be doing no one any favours because nothing will be reciprocated.
Now you may say I’m confusing capitalist models with people/society (Social Capital) but when you look at town centre level the two things are intrinsically linked. It is no wonder Dover and so many town centres are dying when people have this ‘I’m not buying that, I’ll get it cheaper up Tescos!” attitude. Even to holding doors open for people outside Marks and Spencer’s, why bother when probability suggests that no one will show us the same courtesy when we are old. We have to decide what sort of people we want to be, and I certainly want to be one that invests in others. This is the same for those brave businesses that invest in our town (and I’m not talking about asda, because in the grand scale of things, they have nothing to lose) People run businesses in Dover and invest their money and then people champion large faceless chains, oh yes, because they’re more cost effective because their clothes are made by children in appalling conditions (now that’s what I call a contract)
Do we want communities and a functioning society or just a bunch of individuals that just get ripped off by those with money and power!
- DT makes some very telling points there about society. The problem is..the pendulum has swung too far back in favour of the bosses. When Mrs Thatcher knobbled the unions in the seventies, it left the workforce at large with no strong representation. We are now almost back to where we were with the northern Mill Owners of olden times, who accumulated vast riches and built grand palatial country seats, while their cloth capped proletarian workforce lived out their daily lives in hovels of dire poverty. The proles wages were artifically low and kept that way. No concern was shown for their well being.
Much the same thing is happening today..with workers hived off onto contracts at minimum wage where once they might have had a solid fair pay career path with a pension for doing the same job.
As we have heard over the weekend with regard to the Drug Companies ( and indeed other well known utility companies) and their vast profits...it is in the interests of the directors of these companies to keep prices artificially high, while keeping wage costs artificially low. When the profit line and share price reach a certain level, huge extra bonuses kick in for these directors.They have no incentive therefore to reduce prices for the man in the street. Fleece him to the max and they all get rich. No concern is shown for the nations general well being or the state of society. - I agree heartily with both of you,Dt and Paul B. Those of us with long memories can recall Thatchers first election win, having run on the slogan that three quarters of a million unemployed was unacceptable. A few years later we were supposed to be congratulatory over announcements that they had got unemployment 'down to three million'. An attack on the unions alone would never have been enough to get wages down across the lower end of the board, it takes massive unemployment to make people desperate enough to take the pittance. We are now at the stage where people that have started at the bottom and worked there way up are expected to turn around and be grateful for a part time job on minimum wage, answering to people with no idea about having to start making the coffee and doing the filing.
When Labour ran for office they made much of the many changes in the counting system for the unemployment figures, promising an instant revue of them as soon as they got in. Two terms later they are not saying a word but are instead proposing harsher tests on benefit which will make the genuine suffer and merely give the fraudsters a bit more of a challenge.
As you can see, a balanced rant. Equal condemnation to both of the see-saw parties. - some very good points raised by dt, the guvnor then chris.
two points here.
dover harbour board/dover port are not responsible to their shareholders like a normal company/plc.
an old fashioned labour bloke like gp speaks of human mistreatment.
we do not know what the "chap in waiting" thinks yet.
old fashioned tory barry, speaks only of market forces.
the dover public will have strong views on this, when cuts come into effect close to the next election. - Howard - market forces? No, what I am talking about is reality and not some absurd socialist dream world where enterprises (whether public or private) can run as some kind of job creation scheme without consequences.
- Agreed Howard, DHB is not answerable to shareholders, but directors and higher management won’t be contracted out and that’s what sickens me; the people that have made this discussion are the ones that will be the only ones to gain. The port is a public resource that is benefitting a few at the exploitation of the many.
Barry this is not about a ‘job creation scheme’ as the jobs are already there, this about ensuring that the terms of employment are as valued as initially agreed. As I said DHB are not out of pocket by employing people on their current contracts. To suddenly say to someone, with training and experience, that you are no longer worthy of that recognition is just a blatant insult. I’m sure as a financial advisor you are a member of some regulatory body that protects the interests of your customers and yourself. This offers you an amount of security in the professional recognition of your skills and experience. I’m sure if that regulatory body turned around and said “well actually we can train anybody to use a new centrally controlled database and therefore you should be charging £5.66 plus £40 for us, for running the database” and then if that isn’t insulting enough “you can go to another regulatory body but they’re all doing the same, like it or lump it we can get people cheaper and we’re not here to do people favours”
Now I know that this is purely hypothetical and regulatory bodies are not quite the same as a commercial enterprise. But these things could happen if there were not safeguards in place to protect the rights of professionals such as you or I. Why it is then that semi-skilled and unskilled workers are treated with such contempt, no longer protected by trade unions (that were admittedly abused, leading to their demise) Are these people worth less? The answer is no. I will conclude by mentioning that if it weren’t for the ‘socialist dreaming’ from the Chartists, to William Beveridge, people like ourselves would not be professionals, be able to vote or be entitled to health. All of these reforms establish what makes this country great and we forget that at our peril! If we are not careful ensuring solidarity over personal gain we are heading toward a reduced sense of democracy within a quasi-feudal system.