Protests continue over new engineer contracts
British Gas engineers have been joining a national protest against what they believe are unfair new contracts being forced on them from the company.
Protests have been staged in Stourbridge and West Bromwich as engineers seek to highlight concerns over proposed changes to pay and working conditions.
One of the engineers, who has been with British Gas for more than 10 years, said: “We are all under threat of the fire and re-hire contract loophole, which basically means a new contract with worse terms and conditions.
"They’ve basically told us if we don’t sign the contracts we will lose our jobs, so we have been doing these strikes to make the public aware of what is going on.
“We have until the end of the month then there will be mass sackings by British Gas of the engineers who said no to these contracts.
"To me, it’s just a way of getting rid of lots of hardworking engineers, some of who I know have been there for longer than 40 years.”
The engineer said the public had been very receptive, honking horns and bringing the strikers refreshments as they stood outside.
A spokesman for Centrica, which owns British Gas, said: “We need to change to give our customers the service they deserve and protect the company’s 20,000 highly-paid UK jobs.
“There is a job for everyone at the end of this process and sign up levels are well over 95 per cent.
"We’re offering new contracts with updated terms which are fair and competitive. We’re not cutting base pay or our generous final salary pensions.
"Our gas service engineers will remain some of the best paid in the sector, earning £40,000 a year minimum.”
