The country’s biggest gas supplier is telling its engineers to accept what is tantamount to a 15 per cent pay cut or face being fired
Engineers have until Thursday 1 April to accept the new conditions or lose their job.
The new terms British Gas engineers are being told to accept include longer hours with no increase in pay, and being required to complete eight jobs per day versus the present six-and-a-half jobs per day.
The changes are set to affect some 20,000 employees.
There have been over 40 days of strikes since January in protest of the company’s “fire and rehire” plans.
Chris O’Shea, CEO of Centrica, the parent company of British Gas, has defended the move, saying the “vast majority” of British Gas staff affected by the changes have accepted the terms of the new contract.
However, GMB National Secretary, Justin Bowden, said: “Mr O’Shea, CEO of British Gas, has unilaterally created an April 1 cliff edge to sack his workers and is driving the company at high speed toward it.
“If Mr O’Shea goes ahead with this reckless action, GMB has agreed to declare an official national lockout dispute with British Gas from April 1.”
Speaking to JOE, Shadow Employment Rights and Protections Secretary Andy McDonald said: “Those who are on strike have my full support and admiration.”
“Fire and Re Hire is a disgraceful tactic that threatens workers with the loss of their jobs and tries to bully them into accepting lower pay and longer hours,” he said.
“It is as morally indefensible as it is economically illiterate.”
He added: “Some unscrupulous companies are using the cover of the pandemic to weaken terms and conditions, while others like British Gas are making their workforce pay for their own incompetence.
“Yet again, it is working people being forced to pay for a crisis not of their making.
“This is symptomatic of the imbalance of power in the workplace that has become so marked under the Tories which requires fundamental change.”
