Lord Hendy focuses on P&O Ferries for the 2022 Guest Lecture in Employment Law 

Lord John Hendy Guest Speaker

We were delighted to welcome the renowned employment lawyer, Lord John Hendy to deliver the Distinguished Guest Lecture in Employment Law 2022. The Lecture is an integral part of the School's Professional Diploma in Employment Law. Previous speakers include Professors Bernd Waas (Frankfurt), Catherine Barnard (Cambridge), Claire Kilpatrick (European University Institute), Jeremias Prassl (Oxford), Mark Bell (TCD) and Keith Ewing (King's College London). This year's lecture was delivered by Lord John Hendy QC, who is recognised as "the leading silk at the Employment Bar", on the topic of "P&O Ferries and Labour Law". 

 Guests at the reception that followed the lecture

A recording of Lord Hendy’s lecture can be viewed (opens in a new window)here.

Lord Hendy described how, and why, P&O Ferries, on 17 March 2022, dismissed 786 officers and crews on their ferries operating from and to the UK. They were replaced with agency crews from India and the Philippines on much lower wages and far worse terms and conditions of employment. This breached long-standing collective agreements and was done without any prior consultation with the seafarers' trade unions. Lord Hendy described why there was no legal remedy by which the unions or their members could prevent this and pointed out that UK law also prevented the unions from taking any industrial action, in particular "solidarity action", to protect their members' jobs. His conclusion was that UK labour law "failed utterly to protect the jobs, incomes, careers and industrial voice" of these workers.

 The 2022 Diploma in Employment Law class with Lord Hendy and Tony Kerr SC