A former P&O Ferries chef is suing the company for £76m over its decision to sack almost 800 staff without notice last month.

John Lansdown, the only seafarer to launch a legal action, has filed a tribunal claim against the company and its chief executive for unfair dismissal, racial discrimination and harassment.

“The tribunal claim I have filed is intended to bring Peter Hebblethwaite and those responsible at P&O Ferries to justice and make them accountable for their unlawful action,” Lansdown said. “Everyone in this country has a vested interest in not allowing the unscrupulous actions of P&O Ferries to stand.”

He said the £76m he was seeking comprised financial compensation and exemplary damages to deter P&O Ferries from repeating their actions.

In his tribunal claim, Lansdown accuses the company of treating him unfavourably because he is British and eligible for the minimum wage.

P&O Ferries said the mass job cuts were “categorically not based on race or the nationality of the staff involved”.

A spokesperson said: “We took this difficult decision as a last resort and only after full consideration of all other options but, ultimately, we concluded that the business wouldn’t survive without fundamentally changed crewing arrangements, which in turn would inevitably result in redundancies.”

The company said on Wednesday it was preparing to resume operations for four of its ships by next week, subject to regulatory signoff, including on the Dover to Calais route.

Lansdown, who has worked at the company for 15 years, in two stints, starting as a hotel services trainee at age 16, said that P&O Ferries’ conduct set a dangerous precedent in the UK.

“I was devastated by the brutal summary dismissal after many years of loyal and diligent service,” he said. “The manner of the dismissal was harassing. Someone has to take a stand. And it only takes one of us. If P&O Ferries are allowed to get away with this, it will be a bellwether for the entire UK corporate landscape. The reputation of this once great company has been destroyed, not just in the UK but around the world.”

He was promoted to the rank of second chef last May and worked on the Pride of Canterbury, which sailed five times a day between Dover and Calais.

Lansdown, who lives in Kent, said he would establish a trust to help fellow seafarers if his claim was successful. “I hereby undertake to donate the whole of any punitive damages sum awarded to a new trust set up to campaign to protect seafarers’ wages from levelling down, and to campaign to outlaw ‘fire and hire’ in the UK, both in the seafarer industry and more widely. UK employment rights and our way of working life should never be deliberately brutalised by wealthy foreign corporations again,” he said.

The 39-year-old said the compensation package offered by P&O included an “onerous settlement agreement”, including a “no derogatory statements clause which forbad the signatory from making any negative comment about the P&O group company or its directors or shareholders”.

The company said: “We have offered enhanced severance terms to those affected to properly and promptly compensate them for the lack of warning and consultation – all staff offered these terms except Mr Lansdown have accepted this offer.”

P&O Ferries has previously said that the 800 staff made redundant would be offered £36.5m in total, with about 40 receiving more than £100,000 each

Last month, Hebblethwaite admitted to MPs that the decision to sack the workers without notice or union consultation broke the law, but said he would make the same decision again.

Lawrence Davies, Lansdown’s lawyer at the solicitor Equal Justice, said: “It is very important to stop the tide of cheap foreign labour being further exploited by wealthy foreign corporations to undermine UK rights.

“No matter what your view is on Brexit, it has happened. The positive view is it puts us in a world market and [we] can compete outside the relative safety of Europe. The reality of the world market is, it is still a very cut-throat, competitive market for cheap labour and inevitably we are going to have to fight these battles. Battles that we envisaged we would be competing in foreign jurisdictions against their terms of employment rather than have to fight on our own land and waters against that kind of intrusion.”

Lansdown said he anticipated that the RMT and Nautilus unions would also be issuing a tribunal claim on behalf of the sacked staff. “I ask them to continue to support the campaign for justice that we are all seeking to achieve,” he said. “Together we are stronger.”

Lansdown’s claim came less than a week after criminal and civil investigations were launched into P&O Ferries’ decision to sack the workers. The company was widely criticised for making the seafarers redundant without notice on 17 March.

The business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, said on Friday that the Insolvency Service had started “formal criminal and civil investigations”.

The service said: “Following its inquiries, the Insolvency Service has commenced formal criminal and civil investigations into the circumstances surrounding the recent redundancies made by P&O Ferries. As these are ongoing investigations, no further comment or information can be provided at this time.”