ANGER was growing today to the news that British sailors will be sacked on Christmas Day and replaced with cheap foreign labour in a move that spells the end for the country's merchant seamen on deep-sea ships.

City based shipping giant P&O Nedlloyd is axing 81 UK and New Zealand crew members in a cost-cutting exercise.

Now furious union chiefs are threatening industrial action in support of the sailors.

The move comes just three years after 350 crew lost their jobs and when the company promised any future redundancies would be through natural wastage.

But today the remaining 81 face the dole queue after it was revealed their Filipino replacements are prepared to work for nine months for £6,500 - around half the British pay packet.

Among the UK casualties, who will be made redundant from December 9 to December 25, is Martin Lax, 21, from Bassett, Southampton.

He said: "It is absolutely disgraceful that a ship that flies the Red Ensign and is registered in London will soon have no British ratings on board and be crewed by Filipino seafarers.

"We are the last British ratings employed on deep-sea container ships and it looks like we are going to get the sack.''

Martin has just left the ship P&O Nedlloyd Kobe but he has also served on board many other P&O Nedlloyd vessels including Southampton which was officially named in the city's docks.

"I have heard the seamen from the Far East earn around £6,500 for nine months work and then they get overtime on top which can take them up to £13,000,'' said Martin, a former pupil of Mountbatten School in Romsey.

"This compares to our wage of about £15,300 a year plus overtime.

The shock news of redundancy, came in a letter delivered to his Daisy Road home.

The letter from Teunis Steenbeck, P&O Nedlloyd's director of fleet management said: "The company proposes to reorganise ship manning which, if the proposals proceeds, will affect your position.

"The prospects for the coming years are one of continuing rate uncertainty and erosion leading to poor results for the company.

"Therefore there is an urgent need for cost reduction, which is the reason for the proposed redundancies. If the reorganisation proceeds this will involve the redundancy of all ratings currently employed to man those ships.''

The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, who represents the ratings, said it will fight the lay-offs and would soon be balloting members on industrial action in support of the crew.

A union spokesman said: "They are a magnificent crew who have done nothing to deserve such savage treatment.

"We will not stand by and allow P&O Nedlloyd to drive the final nail into the coffin of the commercial deep-sea rating.''

The ratings are employed on five P&O Nedlloyd ships, Southampton and Kobe, Tasman, Hudson and Genoa, all of which still call docks or have been regular visitors in the past to the port.

Last night a spokesman for P&O Nedlloyd said the move was part of a cost cutting exercise aimed at reducing overheads but the company refused to say how much cash would be saved.

This morning Southampton mayor and admiral of the port, Chris Kelly, declined to comment, saying: "I can't talk now, I've got to rush for the bus."