British Gas workers have been sacked by the company on 13th April, why is it so hard to outlawed “Fire and Rehire”?
On the day of 12th April, Debbie Tinsley, the ex-British Gas engineer, along with her colleagues was doing volunteering work for a locao community when she saw the dismissal notification. Her 30 years of loyally serving the company have come to the end brutally.
After 42 days of strike action against ‘the fire and rehire’ which the British Gas adopted to downgrading their engineers’ welfare, Debbie is one of the hundreds who refuse to endure the bullying by the company and being sacked.
“Because we haven’t signed the downgraded contract, the company took off our vans offers, mobile phones, computers, they even demand us to take the shoes off the feet because of the British Gas safety issues, they want to take every single thing off us and alarmed us if anything is missing, we will be charged by the company,” said Debbie.
Fire-and-rehire is widespread at the moment. According to the TUC polling result, nearly one in ten workers have been told to sign up for a downgraded contract with worse terms and conditions since the first lockdown in March 2020. And nearly a fifth of age between 18 and 24 years olds say their employer has tried to re-hired them on worse terms during the Covid.
The Fire-and-Rehire is legal at the moment, but it has provoked the ire of staff and the GMB. British Gas entered formal talks with unions last summer to simplify employment contracts, boost productivity and help the company escape the risk of financial insolvency.
“After a couple of days of strike action, the senior leadership team of the company laughs about our strike action and saying that they sound our petition well. Is this something they can laugh about? This is people’s life!”
“When I joined the British Gas in 1990, I thought this is a job for life and I would be working for the company until I retired. Unfortunately, the company betrayed us,” Debbie said.
Under the Covid situation, fire-and-rehire has commonly used to weaken the terms and conditions at varieties of companies such as Asda, British Airlines, and Tesco. “what we are now seeing is a step-up in employer’s use of hardball tactics as they seek to use the lockdown and worker concerns about job security to slash costs for the long-term,” said Tim Sharp on TUC.
“The fire-and-rehire should be outlawed but it is not just about outlawing it, it is about ensuring people recognize how broad their relationship is, because although the fire-and-rehire is outlawed, the companies always can find another way of doing the similar things,” said Tom Hoyles, the Press and Research Administer for GMB Wales and South West.
Tom added that “the key for workers is to understand how important the negotiation table it is, what fire-and rehire did is completely undermine the table itself, it breaks off the protection for workers by the union.”
“Despite having a good relationship for years with the largest union in British Gas – the GMB – they saw fit to plow ahead with fire and rehire plans early on in ‘negotiations’ as it was felt that a settlement could not be reached,” said Daniel Caie on its blog, the former British Gas engineers
The Commons Committee summarily criticizes the practice of fire-and-rehire and they suggest that this tactic ought to be outlawed and the law should be changed to protect workers’ rights. Given the fact that the Conservative majority in Westminster, it remains unclear.
“Boris Johson said in the British Gas dispute that they should not use these tactics, but this is the issue of it. His party’s money comes from the businesses. I would personally surprised if he outlawed the tactics. If Boris does not do it, the next labor government definitely will.”