British Gas Strike: Workers prepare for five days of strike action over 'fire and rehire' plan

Over 1,000 British Gas workers in Scotland are preparing to begin five days of strike action over the company’s ‘fire and rehire’ plan.

This will be the biggest dispute that the sector has seen for over forty years, with over 10,000 members of the trade union GMB across the UK taking part.

GMB has said that there has been months of negotiations with British Gas parent company Centrica that have not been successful.

British Gas workers will be protesting outside the Headquarters in Edinburgh.

Hazel Nolan, GMB Scotland Senior Organiser for Commercial Services, said: “Today is CEO pay day, Chris O’Shea (Centrica Plc Group’s CEO) will take home a pre-bonus wage of £775,000, and Centrica have recorded a £901million operating profit for 2019.

“While GMB members in British Gas acted as emergency workers during the COVID19 pandemic, Chris O’Shea and the Senior Millionaires Team of British Gas were busy plotting how to slash workers terms and conditions.

“In the grip of a global pandemic, Chris O’Shea’s anti-worker, ‘fire and rehire’ agenda would set a dangerous precedent for major UK employers, opening the floodgates for widespread attacks on workers’ jobs, pay and conditions. This is not how a country builds back better.

“GMB members are being told they’ll be sacked and then forced to accept new terms and conditions - across the board cuts in wages pensions and leave. Take it or leave it. Centrica are turning a once great British industrial institution into a cowboy contractor.

“We have no choice but to fight-back.”

Strikers will be holding a socially distanced protest outside Centrica Headquarters in Edinburgh and Murdoch House in Glasgow.

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