LONDON (UK) – The GMB trade union announced on Tuesday that workers at Centrica’s British Gas will stage the second series of five one-day strikes to protest against changes to work conditions which are on the anvil.
The union said its members would strike on Jan. 20, Jan. 22, Jan. 25, Jan. 29 and Feb. 1 to protest against Centrica’s plans to “fire and rehire” and slash pay and terms.
Last week, as many as 7,000 Centrica staff took part in a strike and most of them were engineers. It said it expected a similar number to take part in the second round of agitations.
Protesting against the proposals. workers carried out five days of strike action at the beginning of January. At the end of 2019, the firm had 27,000 employees.
Last year, Centrica cancelled its dividend and announced plans to slash 5,000 jobs, almost 20% of its international workforce. It also said it would change the terms of workers’ contracts in the wake of the pandemic crisis and dwindling customer numbers.
According to GMB, British Gas staff rejected the “fire and rehire” pay slashes with an 89% vote to support strike action.