Tuesday, May 10, 2022

8,500-year-old stone houses are the oldest known structures in the UAE

The remains of Neolithic buildings were found on the island of Ghagha.

By Emily Staniforth

published 1 day ago

The remains of the Neolithic stone structures (Image credit: DCT Abu Dhabi)

Archaeologists have discovered the oldest structure ever found in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — the remains of a building that may be 8,500 years old.

The structure, which dates to the Neolithic period, was found by archaeologists on on the island of Ghagha off Abu Dhabi.

An analysis of carbon isotopes, or versions of carbon, within charcoal fragments from the site show that the structure is 500 years older than any structures found before in the UAE, according to a February statement from the Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi). Previously, the oldest structure found was on the island of Marawah.

The Neolithic stone structures on the island of Ghagha (Image credit: DCT Abu Dhabi)

"These archaeological finds have shown that people were settling and building homes here 8,500 years ago," Mohamed Al Mubarak, the chairman of DCT Abu Dhabi, said in the statement.

The find highlights the historical connection between the people of the UAE and the sea. Before this discovery it was believed that people settled in the area which is now the UAE later in the Neolithic period as people expanded long-distance maritime trade routes, Al Mubarak said.

However, the new discovery shows that Neolithic settlements existed before the evolution of trade in the area.

The structures found on Ghagha are believed to have been houses for a small community who lived on the island year-round. The rounded rooms have stone walls, the remains of which measure 3 feet (1 meter) high. Archaeologists also found artifacts, such as stone arrowheads, at the site. These would likely have been used for hunting, with the inhabitants of the island also relying on the sea for resources.

The stone arrowheads found at the site on Ghagha. (Image credit: DCT Abu Dhabi)

Archaeologists don't know exactly how long the settlement was inhabited, but the burial of a person at the site 5,000 years ago, after the settlement was abandoned, illustrates that the structure was an important cultural and historical aspect of the island. Burials from this period are a rare find on the Abu Dhabi islands, according to the statement.

When Neolithic people lived on Ghagha and Marawah, these islands weren't "arid and inhospitable," but a "fertile coast," according to the statement. "This evidence recasts Abu Dhabi's islands within the cultural history of the broader region."

Originally published on Live Science.

CTHULU STUDIES

'Mind-boggling' scrambled genome found in octopus and squid. It could explain their smarts.

Cephalopods have been breaking the rules with their genomes.

By Stephanie Pappas

A Caribbean reef octopus (Octopus briareus) hunting at night at a coral reef in Curaçao. (Image credit: Wild Horizons/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Squid, octopus and cuttlefish have scrambled-up genomes that may help explain how these cephalopods evolved the most complicated nervous systems of any invertebrate.

New genetic sequencing reveals that these animals' genes are mixed up, arranged in strange orders not seen in other, non-cephalopod species. This DNA mixing and matching may have given evolution a new sandbox to play in, study co-author Caroline Albertin, a biologist at the University of Chicago Marine Biological Laboratory, told Live Science.

"A hypothesis is that these new gene arrangements resulted in new expression patterns and that means these genes could be used in a new place or in a new way," Albertin said, referring to the process of a gene being "expressed" or activated to create proteins that do some type of work in the body.

Those new opportunities, in turn, could explain some of squid and octopuses' incredible abilities, such as advanced vision or arms that have their own "brains."

Scientists have long suspected that strange things are going on in the cephalopod genome. In 2015, when Albertin and her colleagues sequenced the first octopus genome, they expected to see a pattern of genetic evolution similar to many vertebrates: duplication. During the long history of life on Earth, all vertebrates with jaws have copied their genomes twice, meaning that mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and sharks have all accumulated four copies of the original genome. Some of those copied genes have since been lost, but many have been borrowed by evolution to take on new roles.

"It opens up a whole genomic playground for evolution to act on," Albertin said. "[M]aybe one of those four genes can go off and start to do something else."

It stood to reason that cephalopod evolution involved the same duplication process. But when they started to dig into the octopus genome,, Albertin and her colleagues found no evidence that cephalopods had done this genetic copy-paste. Now, the team has gone deeper, using next-generation sequencing technologies to piece together chromosome-level readouts of two squids — the Hawaiian bobtail squid (Euprymna scolopes) and the longfin inshore squid (Doryteuthis pealeii) — and one octopus — the California two-spot octopus (Octopus biamaculoides).

In papers published in the journal Nature Communications on April 21 and May 4, the researchers used three different genome sequencing methods to decode the genomes, including state-of-the-art long-read sequencing that can read out thousands of DNA base-pairs at one time. (The rungs of the ladder-like molecule of DNA are made up of pairs of nitrogen bases.) If the genome were a book, or, more accurately, a very long series of books — the Hawaiian bobtail squid has 5.5 billion base-pairs in its genome — long-read sequencing lets scientists read pages instead of paragraphs, Albertin said.

Mixed up genes, complex brains?

The results showed that cephalopods' genomes have been churned and scrambled. Albertin's study co-authors Hannah Schmidbaur and Oleg Simakov of the University of Vienna and their colleagues compared the cephalopod genes to thousands of similar genes found across a wide array of animal species. They found 505 blocks of three or more genes that co-occurred in the squids and octopus but were not found together in other animals. If genes A, B and C are typically found close together on Chromosome 5 in snails and fish and fruit flies, for example, they'll often be scattered across three separate chromosomes in cephalopods.

The finding is "mind-boggling," Albertin said, because gene order usually stays the same, even among species that are far apart on the evolutionary tree.

"That, to evolutionary biologists, suggests there is a reason you keep that gene order," she said. "And cephalopods seem to be breaking these rules."

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It's not clear how the cephalopods pulled off this genetic disobedience. The gene-scrambling took place over many generations of cephalopods and hundreds of millions of years, Albertin said, and it may have relied on "jumping genes," also known as transposable elements, which are DNA sequences that can hop around the genome.

The researchers examined which genes were active in cephalopod tissues and found that many of the unique cephalopod gene groupings were busy in the nervous tissue, hinting that these special sequences could have played a role in the evolution of cephalopod smarts.

"This is really pointing to an exciting new perspective on how novel features arise in evolution," Albertin said.

Originally published on Live Science

Satellite Tracking Reveals Threat To Biggest Fish In Sea

Tuesday, 10 May 2022, 9:55 am
Press Release: University of Auckland

Lethal collisions of whale sharks with large ships may be vastly underestimated, potentially helping to explain why the biggest fish in the sea is in decline, according to new research.

“Collision risk with marine vessel traffic is only starting to be recognised as a serious threat that may require mitigation efforts, and it’s important that New Zealand take this seriously,” says Dr Mark Erdmann, of the University of Auckland and Conservation International, who was a co-author of the study led out of the UK. “There are plans to start a whale shark tagging program to better understand this endangered species’ movements in Aotearoa’s coastal waters.”

Whale sharks are slow-moving ocean giants which feed on microscopic animals called zooplankton. Their numbers have been declining around the world.

Scientists from international research institutions and universities tracked 348 satellite-tagged whale sharks in research led by the Marine Biologicial Association of the UK and the University of Southampton in the UK.

Tags recorded cases of whale sharks moving into shipping lanes and then sinking slowly to the seafloor hundreds of metres below, the ’smoking gun’ of a lethal ship strike.

“Our results point to potential high levels of undetected or unreported ship strikes, which may explain why whale shark populations continue to decline despite protection and low fishing-induced mortality,” the researchers wrote in the paper. “Collision mitigations in high-collision-risk areas appear necessary to help conserve this iconic species.”

New Zealand’s whale sharks couldn’t feature in the study because none were satellite tagged, said Dr Erdmann. (Dr Erdmann’s team from Conservation International, a nonprofit environmental organisation, contributed tracking data on more than 20 whale sharks tagged in South-East Asia.)

“We really know almost nothing about where New Zealand’s whale sharks move or spend most of their time.

“Based on sightings from fishers and boaties, we know that there is a population of whale sharks off the eastern coast of the North Island, from Bay of Plenty to North Cape.

Slowing ships would cut the threat of lethal collisions, reduce sound pollution that harms underwater creatures, and lessen greenhouse gas emissions, according to the paper’s authors.

The journal article, entitled “Global collision-risk hotspots of marine traffic and the world’s largest fish, the whale shark,” is being published in the journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences).

Prehistoric Earthquakes And Snail Shells May Give Future Insights

Monday, 9 May 2022, 10:25 am
Press Release: University of Canterbury

New research led by University of Canterbury paleoseismologist Dr Tim Stahl is providing insights into prehistoric surface rupturing earthquakes in the Republic of Georgia to understand what future earthquakes could do.

Along with a multi-disciplinary research team, trenching on a fault line in the Greater Caucasus Mountain range in Georgia has provided invaluable data and insights into significant earthquakes over the last 40,000 years.

“What we found was a minimum of three significant surface-rupturing earthquakes in the last 40,000 years on that fault,” Dr Stahl says. “And we have a fair idea that the surface-rupturing earthquakes are large ones, approximately magnitude 7 and above.”

Paleoseismology is the study of prehistoric earthquakes, a bit like archaeology but for earthquakes says Dr Stahl.

“Key information we’re after is the magnitude of past earthquakes and the frequency of the largest earthquakes. So, while we’re studying prehistoric earthquakes, it’s with the aim of understanding and characterising future earthquakes.”

Dr Stahl says the research has highlighted how little information we have about active faults, and fault networks, in Georgia. He hopes this research will act as a template for other research taking place in neighbouring countries.

As well as developing seismic hazard models from studying individual faults, information is also gained on how mountain ranges and tectonic plates develop over time. The Eurasian-Arabian plate collision, which is how the Greater Caucasus’ have formed, is part of one of the longest plate boundaries in the world.

“GPS stations in Georgia indicate that the trench study was conducted in an area where the plates are coming together and really concentrating their force. However, the activity we found at the fault was not nearly enough to account for the whole plate motion budget. From this we know there are several other faults in the area that we don’t know about and might not be able to trench across.”

To date seismic events, the research team used radiocarbon dating of terrestrial land snails because they are found in modern surface soil and in old soil and deposits.

“Snails are complex in that, while they are alive, they eat old carbonaceous material and incorporate that into their shell. When the shell is dated you can get an age that’s a lot older than the snail. It can be problematic so to get around this we took modern snail shells from the same species and dated their shells, enabling us to get a more accurate age of the snail shells we found in the trench.”

The research team led by Dr Stahl included Professor Eric Cowgill and Dylan Vasey (PhD student), from the University of California, and Giorgi Boichenko (PhD student) and Professor Tea Godoladze of Ilia State University. The multi-disciplinary team brought expertise in structural geology, geophysics, paleoseismology and seismology to the project as well as extensive local knowledge and contacts.

The research is already receiving interest from industry in the area with infrastructure linking the Black and Caspian Seas. The team’s research paper, ‘Recent Surface Rupturing Earthquakes along the South Flank of the Greater Caucasus near Tbilisi, Georgia’, was recently published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.

Afghanistan: Nearly 20 Million Going Hungry

Tuesday, 10 May 2022
Press Release: UN News

Nearly 20 million people in Afghanistan – almost half the population – are facing acute hunger, humanitarians warned in a UN-backed report, published on Monday.

The latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis for the country also revealed a pocket of “catastrophic” levels of food insecurity in the northeast, affecting thousands.

The analysis was conducted in January and February by partners who include the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), sister agency the World Food Programme (WFP), and many non-governmental organizations.

Averting a catastrophe

Although humanitarian assistance helped avert a food security catastrophe over the harsh winter in Afghanistan, hunger still persists at unprecedented levels, according to the report.

Richard Trenchard, FAO Representative in the country, described the food security situation as dire.

“Humanitarian assistance remains desperately important, as do the needs to rebuild shattered agricultural livelihoods and re-connect farmers and rural communities to struggling rural and urban markets across the country. Unless these happen, there will be no way out of this crisis,” he said.

The IPC was developed in 2004 to determine the severity and magnitude of food insecurity and acute malnutrition situations in a country.

Slight improvement expected

The report predicts there will be a slight improvement in food security in Afghanistan from June through November, with the number of people facing acute food insecurity dropping to 18.9 million.

This is partly due to the coming wheat harvest, which runs from May to August, as well as the scale-up in food assistance this year and increased support to agriculture.

“Food assistance and emergency livelihood support are the lifeline for the people of Afghanistan. We mounted the world’s largest humanitarian food operation in a matter of months, reaching more than 16 million people since August 2021,” said Mary-Ellen McGroarty, WFP’s Country Director and Representative in Afghanistan.

A ‘catastrophic’ first

However, the report warned that any gains will be limited, as lingering drought and the economic crisis continue to threaten the lives and livelihoods of millions across the country.

The partners were particularly concerned that a small pocket of “catastrophic” levels of food insecurity – IPC 5, the highest phase on the scale – has been detected, marking a first since the scale was introduced in Afghanistan in 2011.

More than 20,000 people in Ghor province, located in the northeast, are facing catastrophic levels of hunger resulting from a long period of harsh winter and disastrous agricultural conditions.

Ukraine war pressures

The report said that although the upcoming harvest will bring some relief for millions, that relief will only be short-term for many.

Fallout from the war in Ukraine continues to put pressure on Afghanistan’s wheat supply, food commodities, agricultural inputs, and fuel prices.

Furthermore, access to seeds, fertilizer and water for irrigation is limited, labour opportunities are scarce, and people have incurred enormous debts to buy food over the past few months.

Supporting people and agriculture

FAO and WFP continue to scale up their programmes across Afghanistan.

“We are working with farmers, millers, and bakeries, training women and creating jobs to support the local economy. Because the people of Afghanistan would much prefer jobs; women want to be able to work; and all girls deserve to go to school,” said Ms. McGroarty of WFP.

“Allowing the economy to function normally is the surest way out of the crisis, otherwise suffering will grow where crops cannot,” she added.

WFP has reached more than 16 million people in Afghanistan so far this year with emergency food assistance, while also supporting local markets, and working with retailers and local suppliers.

The agency also continues to invest in skills training and climate adaption projects so that families can cultivate their land and grow their own food.

Meanwhile, FAO continues to ramp up assistance to farmers and herders in rural areas in Afghanistan.

The UN agency will assist more than nine million people this year through a range of interventions that include support for crop, livestock and vegetable production; cash transfers, and the rehabilitation of vital irrigation infrastructure and systems.

In more news from Afghanistan:

Escalating restrictions on women

The head of UN Women has expressed grave concern over the latest announcement by the country’s de facto authorities.

This weekend the Taliban ordered that all women must cover their faces in public and should only leave their homes in cases of necessity. Any violations will result in their male relatives being punished.

“The latest directive by the Taliban is a further escalation of restrictions on women and girls, including impeded return to work and inability to pursue their education,” said Sima Bahous, Executive Director of UN Women.

Freedom of movement is a fundamental human right, she stated.

“It is an absolute prerequisite for women’s ability to exercise the full range of their rights and to be active participants in society. Where women’s rights are constrained, everyone is diminished.”

High price to pay

Ms. Bahous recalled that earlier this year, the UN Secretary-General had noted the de facto authorities’ decision to deny education to girls above the sixth grade.

She was further alarmed by reports about women being unable to drive, take public transport, or simply move from place to place.

“Such constraints increasingly limit women’s ability to earn a living, access health care and education, seek protection, escape situations of violence, exercise their individual and collective rights, and act with agency.” she said.

Ms. Bahous added that these accelerating violations of women and girls’ rights are costing Afghanistan dearly and are impacting on social and economic growth.

It is estimated that current restrictions on women’s employment have resulted in up to $1 billion in immediate economic losses, she said, or up to five per cent of the country’s economic output.

With more than half the population requiring humanitarian assistance, amid food insecurity and malnutrition, “the latest restrictions make attempts at recovery harder, if not impossible,” she said.

“We urgently call on the de facto authorities to respect their obligations under human rights law and the full human rights of women and girls, including the immediate restoration of women’s and girls’ independent freedom of movement, and their rights to work and to education to the highest level.”

Meet the NI female welder making waves in the industry as she eyes top award

“People are always surprised when they hear what my job is."

By Shaun Keenan

Derry reporter

5 MAY 2022

Chloe Rankin, 19, who is studying for the Level 3 Apprenticeship at NWRC’s Springtown has been shortlisted as a finalist in the ‘Insider - Made in Northern Ireland’ Apprentice of the Year Award 2022.

Chloe Rankin found her passion as a teenager. Unlike other girls in her class, she took an interest in welding and hasn't looked back.

When the Derry girl enrolled in a college apprenticeship, she was one of the only female in her class an now is the only female employee at a local company.

After following her goals, the 19-year-old has now been shortlisted as a finalist for a major award.

She has been nominated for the ‘Insider - Made in Northern Ireland’ Apprentice of the Year Award 2022.

Chloe, who is studying for the Level 3 Apprenticeship at NWRC’s Springtown Campus, has worked with her college and employers to promote careers in welding to women and young people across the North West.

Her employer, Fleming Agri, has also made the top three in the Manufacturing Apprenticeship/Training Scheme Award category.

Speaking about her nomination, Chloe said she was delighted to have made the final three in the apprentice category.

“People are always surprised when they hear what my job is," Chloe said.

"Seeing the shock on their faces never gets old, but everyone thinks it’s class that I’m a woman welder.

“I like being hands-on when I’m learning and working. My experience has been good working as an apprentice, I couldn’t see myself doing anything else.

"I don’t think things would have gone as well for me if I’d gone down the strictly academic route as I wouldn’t be the biggest fan of sitting in a classroom all day, every day, and I like having a bit of freedom when working.

“An apprenticeship is a great route for your career as you are learning a new skill but also getting the experience while getting paid.

“My employment with Fleming has been great, they’ve always supported me. They happily gave me a chance and took me on knowing that I was going to be the only girl working out in the factory.”

Lecturer at NWRC, Justin Sterritt, who nominated Chloe for the award described her as an “outstanding example to young women everywhere”.

He added: “Chloe is fully committed to her role and is driven to become an exceptional welder. She is not afraid to get stuck in at work, is confident in her abilities, and has shown she is as capable, if not more capable in some areas, to do the job.

" Her skills at welding have bloomed over her time at Fleming Agri and she is now capable of the toughest of jobs, working on her own initiative wherever possible and needing the minimum of supervision.

“Chloe has proved to be an excellent welder whilst at the same time excelling in her college studies.”

Jonathan Lecky, Managing Director at Fleming Agri added: “As a major employer of welder/fabricators, Flemings Agri has supported apprenticeships for many years, and we currently employ fifteen NWRC apprentices.”

“Chloe is a committed welder who works with great enthusiasm to become the best that she can be in her chosen field.

"She’s always eager to learn new skills and works on her own initiative and when faced with problems, calmly works towards satisfactory solutions. She is an inspiration to other young women considering a career in Welding or Engineering.”

Translink strike action 'back on' after members reject pay offer

Union claims bus workers have "once again shown their anger and frustration" with the company.

By Orlaith Clinton

9 MAY 2022

The Glider (Image: Translink)

Translink's strike action will recommence this month after workers rejected a revised pay offer on Monday.

The GMB Union claims that bus workers have today "once again shown their anger and frustration" with the company.

Drivers, cleaners and shunters across the company will carry out a seven day-long strike from May 17 to May 23 2022, causing the "entire bus network to grind to a halt".

Read more: Northern Ireland councils facing energy bill increases of hundreds of percent, official says

Peter Macklin, GMB Regional Organiser, said: "Translink bus workers have today once again shown their anger and frustration with the company.

"They were proud to carry out their duty during the pandemic - despite potentially putting themselves and their families lives at risk.

"Now they need some help to tackle the crushing cost of living crisis they face – but bosses aren’t listening.

"The dispute, which affects bus drivers, cleaners and shunters will close the entire bus network within Northern Ireland. It will be a complete shutdown."

A Translink spokesperson said: “We are disappointed to learn that Unite and GMB Bus Driver Trade Unions, by a relatively slim margin, have voted to take unprecedented industrial action from Tuesday 17th May to 23rd May.

“Following extensive negotiations, we made a further substantial offer for 2021, including an enhanced package of conditions, that we believe is fair and reasonable.

“At this stage, having exhausted all options, we will start to take the difficult decisions in preparing for the impact of the strike action. However, we remain committed to working with the unions to avert this action.

“We would welcome the opportunity to engage with unions to cover school duties, so that the wellbeing of schoolchildren can remain a priority, particularly as many enter the exam period.

“All train services will continue to operate as normal.

“We will communicate relevant passenger information through the media, on our website www.translink.co.uk, through social media, in stations, and on buses and trains.

“Translink apologises for any inconvenience this may cause”.

RMT union calls major ballot for national rail strike over maintenance jobs cuts by Network Rail

The RMT has called for a ballot over Network Rail’s intention to cut at least 2,500 “safety critical maintenance jobs”

By Ethan Shone
Wednesday, 20th April 2022

A trade union boss has warned of a national rail strike which would “bring the country to a standstill” if cuts to maintenance jobs aren’t reversed.

The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport workers (RMT) has called for a ballot on strike action which could take place in the summer.

Why are the RMT calling a strike ballot?

Over 40,000 railway workers on Network Rail and 15 train operating companies (TOCs) will be balloted for strike action in what the RMT has called “potentially the biggest rail strike in modern history”.

The RMT has hit out at Network Rail’s intention to cut at least 2,500 “safety critical maintenance jobs” as part of a £2bn reduction in spending on the network.

They say railway staff have been subject to pay freezes, threats to jobs and attacks on their terms and conditions.

The government, which ultimately runs Network Rail, has said it is “overhauling the sector and moving it off taxpayer life support”.

The ballot opens April 26 and closes May 24, meaning industrial action could begin “as early as June” if enough members turnout and vote ‘yes’ to strike action.

The 15 train operating companies RMT are balloting is as follows: Chiltern Railways, Cross Country Trains, Greater Anglia, LNER, East Midlands Railway, c2c, Great Western Railway, Northern Trains, South Eastern Railway, South Western Railway, Island Line, GTR (including Gatwick Express), Transpennine Express, Avanti West Coast, West Midlands Train.

RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said: "Railway workers have had to contend with pay freezes, the prospect of losing their jobs and repeated attacks on their terms and conditions.

"Removing 2,500 safety critical jobs from Network Rail will spell disaster for the public, make accidents more likely and will increase the possibility of trains flying off the tracks.

"Train Operating Companies have praised our members for being key workers during the pandemic but have refused to keep staff pay in line with inflation and soaring living costs.

"As a result, thousands of railway workers have seen their living standards plummet and have run out of patience.”

Rea

Trade unions have been warning for some time that widespread industrial action could take place over proposed job cuts.

In January, the Transport Salaried Staffs Association raised concerns that workers in the rail industry will be forced out of jobs as a result of the cost of living crisis.

The TSSA called for an extension to a no compulsory redundancy agreement, which would protect employees who wish to stay in the industry from forced redundancies.

The industry is already set to see a significant number of jobs lost to voluntary severance schemes, but unions say they’ve been told this won’t be enough to cover central government-enforced cuts worth £2bn.

TSSA general secretary Manuel Cortes said: “Our union has been crystal clear that any threat to use compulsory redundancies will be met with industrial action ballots.

“We will of course seek to coordinate any industrial action with our sister rail unions and any other workers fighting the Tories’ cost of living standards crisis.

“A national rail strike in 2022 is very much on the cards.”

Why do trade unions call strikes?

The rate of industrial action across the country is at a five-year high, as many workers are struggling to maintain their standard of living as costs rise.

Most people will not see their pay increase in line with inflation this year, meaning they will suffer a real-terms loss in their income.

But some workers who are in trade unions which are fighting for better conditions have been able to secure above-inflation pay rises.

Mr Lynch added: "The way for trade unions to effectively take on the cost-of-living crisis is to stand up for their members at work and take industrial action when employers are not moved by the force of reasoned argument.

"A national rail strike will bring the country to a standstill, but our members livelihoods and passenger safety are our priorities."

A spokesperson for the Department for Transport said: “We want a fair deal for staff, passengers and taxpayers so the railway doesn’t take money away from other essential public services like the NHS and this kind of irresponsible disruption only makes things worse, damaging our economy just as it is recovering.

“The Government committed £15 billion to keep trains running throughout the pandemic but passenger levels are still less than three quarters what they were in 2019, so, to avoid a similar decline seen in the 1950s-60s where car usage saw many leave the railways, we are overhauling the sector and moving it off taxpayer life support.”

“A complete insult to workers”:

Union hits out at P&O Ferries boss

Peter Hebblethwaite’s ‘promotion’

The RMT has said “gangster capitalists should not be rewarded for their appalling employment practices”

By Ethan Shone
Monday, 9th May 2022

The disgraced director of P&O Ferries has taken on further directorships within the company, despite calls for his resignation over the sacking of 800 seafarers earlier this year.

Peter Hebblethwaite, who told MPs at a select committee hearing that he would have taken the decision to sack staff without consultation again, earns £325,000 per year as CEO of P&O Ferries.

Who is Peter Hebblethwaite and what did P&O do?

The decision by P&O Ferries to sack around 800 staff without consultation via a pre-recorded Zoom message was roundly criticised earlier this year.

By failing to consult with trade unions over the mass redundancies the company breached employment law, in a move which was designed to cut staffing costs for the operator, as UK-based staff were replaced with agency workers paid as little as £4 per hour.

Boris Johnson was among those to call for the ferry company’s CEO, Peter Hebblethwaite, to resign.

Since then the company has been found to have committed a number of safety breaches across its fleet.

The Pride of Kent has failed safety inspections on three occasions and two other P&O Ferries have also failed Maritime and Coastguard Agency inspections in the last month or or so.

The safety failures detected aboard P&O ships include fire safety equipment not being installed, poorly maintained lifeboats and inadequate certification of the agency crew employed by International Fleet Management.

However, according to Companies House Mr Hebblethwaite has taken on new directorships within the P&O group, in what the RMT union has described as a “complete insult to workers everywhere”.

RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said: "Gangster capitalists should not be rewarded for their appalling employment practices; they should be punished with the full force of law.

"Promoting Peter Hebblethwaite is a complete insult to workers everywhere, especially our members in Dover, Hull, Larne, Cairnryan and Liverpool who continue to deal with the consequences of P&O Ferries appalling assault on their jobs and livelihoods.

The firm is currently subject to both criminal and civil investigations by the Insolvency Service into the mass sacking.

Mr Lynch added: “Hebblethwaite is paid a basic £325,000 per year whilst Indian Able Seafarers on the Pride of Canterbury are paid a basic of £3.97 per hour. This naked corporate greed on our key ferry routes cannot be allowed to continue.

"P&O and Hebblethwaite are specialists in failure and the Government has to take further action to reinstate sacked seafarers and to prevent further carnage in the UK ferries sector."

P&O denies Hebblethwaite promotion

Speaking at an industry conference last month, Mr Hebblethwaite claimed he and the company had been victims of misinformation and said he hoped he would be able to “survive the next few months”.

Addressing the Shippax conference, he said: “We have not conducted ourselves on the day, or since, in anything like the way that has been suggested of me and us.”

Addressing MPs at a select committee inquiry hearing regarding the mass sacking, Mr Hebblethwaite admitted knowingly breaching employment law, and failed to comment on whether he would accept a bonus this year.

A spokesperson for P&O Ferries said: “As a matter of public record, Peter Hebblethwaite has been a Director of P&O Ferries Division Holdings since August 2019.

“As is normal, since being confirmed as permanent Chief Executive Officer on 22 February 2022 he has now been appointed to the boards of all P&O Ferries Division Holdings subsidiary companies.”

Zero hours contracts and low paid work cost the government billions each year, TUC warns

The TUC estimates that low-paid self employment costs the Treasury more than £9 billion per year

By Ethan Shone
Monday, 9th May 2022,

Low-paid and precarious work costs the government billions every year, which should be used for “cash-strapped hospitals, care homes and schools,” according to the Trade Union Congress (TUC).

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady has called on the government to introduce the “long overdue” Employment Bill in the upcoming Queen’ Speech to tackle various forms of precarious work.

What is the cost to Government of low paid and precarious work?

Low paid self-employment costs the Treasury £9.7 billion each year, according to the TUC, while zero-hours contracts cost an additional £614 million.

The organisation said that precarious employment practices effectively “starve” the public purse, forcing the government to spend more on social security programs to make up for shortfalls in workers’ income.

As workers on zero hours contracts and other forms of precarious employment earn significantly less than regular employees, their employers are effectively being subsidised by the taxpayer.

The TUC also points to reduced tax and National Insurance contributions as a cause of the major Treasury shortfall.

General secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Britain’s insecure work epidemic isn’t just punishing workers, it’s starving the public finances too

“The Government’s failure to clamp down on shady employment practices is costing the Treasury a fortune every year.

“That means less funding for our cash-strapped hospitals, care homes and schools.”

Will the Employment Bill feature in the Queen’s Speech?

The TUC reiterated calls for an Employment

“Leaving insecure work to flourish unchecked would be an act of betrayal.

A Government spokesperson said: “We are committed to building a high skilled, high productivity, high wage economy that delivers on our ambition to make the UK the best place in the world to work.

“This includes ensuring workers’ rights are robustly protected while also fostering a dynamic and flexible labour market.”

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