British Gas workers turn up the heat on strike threat for up to 20,000 staff
British Gas workers have cranked up the heat on potential strike action over the Christmas season unless it “takes the gun off table’, the GMB trade union has said.
Thousands of GMB union members will vote on industrial action in a ballot opening on 1 December, which could see engineers refusing to fix British Gas customers’ broken-down boilers over the festive season.
The first possible strike action to take place anytime from New Year’s Eve, the union said, with further strikes on the horizon over the winter.
It comes after British Gas owner Centrica in July threatened to ‘“fire and rehire” 20,000 workers if they did not agree to “draconian” cuts to their terms and conditions.
“Let’s be blunt; Centrica tried to enforce pay cuts of around 20 per cent on the workforce. After over 300 hours of talks with the unions they dropped the imposed cuts plan to about 10 per cent,” said Justin Bowden, GMB national secretary.
He said the proposed changes were “incomplete and unfair”, adding that it was “wrong that all the risks associated with trying to turn the business’s fortunes around should be placed on the workforce”.
“The message to Centrica from GMB has been clear all the way; they need to take the gun off the table, stop the threats and return to the negotiating table,” said Bowden.
Centrica said that it had lost more than a million British Gas customers in the past two years to competitors with lower-priced products, and that its earnings have halved over the same period.
A study from HSBC this year found that there were 41 cheaper options for households in London alone.
“To win back customers from our competitors and reverse the decline of our business we must have flexibility to give customers what they want, at a price they want and when they need it,” a Centrica spokesperson said.
“Our current terms and conditions are stopping us doing this and modernising the way we work is critical to our success,” the spokesperson added.
Base pay and pensions would be protected under the proposed changes, the company said, and while wage bills would drop by 1.5 per cent.
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