“‘A kick in the teeth’: British Gas engineers face losing their jobs or longer workers hours”, 28 March 2021

Hundreds of engineers could be dismissed from the country’s biggest energy supplier by the end of the week as a bitter nine-month battle in the UK’s latest “fire and rehire” debacle reaches its climax.

The standoff between British Gas executives and trade union representatives at GMB will come to a head on 1 April, when scores of the engineers responsible for servicing and repairing office and home boilers will be forced to accept longer working hours or lose their jobs entirely.

The tougher terms affect the entire 20,000 strong British Gas workforce, but its 7,500 service engineers … fear they will take a disproportionate toll on their lives and livelihoods…

British Gas set out the fire and rehire plans last summer as part of a formal consultation process with trade unions … Trade unions said the plan amounted to “bullying” by threatening to “set fire to jobs, terms and conditions”.

Under the new terms, full-time engineers would be required to work an extra three hours a week, 40 hours in total, and would not be paid a higher rate to work when required on weekends and public holidays.

“This is certainly not a position anyone wants to be in,” says Chris O’Shea, chief executive of Centrica, parent company of British Gas. “How did we get here? Our business has been declining for a number of years. We’ve lost a million customers in the last 10 years. Our productivity has declined substantially.”

For workers at British Gas, faced with a choice between working for less and unemployment, there are less than three days left to decide.