British Gas workers from New Malden are continuing their strike over new "fire and re-hire" contracts they say are being forced on them by parent company Centrica.

Striking between Friday and Monday, the engineers returned to their picket under the overpass in New Malden this weekend and through into today (Monday, March 1).

The workers are walking out amid new contract negotiations with Centrica that were floated by the company during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. 

After being praised by the company for risking their safety during the first wave of Covid-19 last year, engineers say they are now threatened with being fired by the company to be re-hired again only if they accept a new contract that reportedly amount to pay cuts.

Surrey Comet: Striking engineers with British Gas on the picket line in New Malden. Striking engineers with British Gas on the picket line in New Malden.

The strikes by engineers affiliated with the GMB trade union have been rolling since January and show little sign of stopping, as New Malden engineer James told the Surrey Comet.

"People are angry that the company have not made big enough steps to get a middle ground agreement with us," James said over the toots of drivers passing by and showing their support for the strike.

"Fire and re-hire is being used as a negotiation tactic for leverage by the company so they can push through the deal they want and not something that is a fair agreement between the workers and the company," he added.

New contracts proposed by Centrica were previously accepted by most of the company's employees during the initial negotiation period, but James said that over 80 per cent of British Gas field engineers supported by GMB continue to reject the offer tabled by Centrica as a pay cut.

In the latest round of negotiations, Centrica reportedly offered to "suspend" their fire and re-hire position and tabled a new offer.

"They said they would suspend fire and re-hire if we suspended our strike action.

"It didn't really seem to us like it meant anything other than pushing back the point we would be fired by a week," James said recounting the latest round of negotiations.

And while a suspension of the strike did in fact take place recently, the engineer warned that the new offer was "almost the same" as the previous offer from the company, suggesting that the ongoing stand-off could continue into next weekend and beyond.

Surrey Comet: Picketing workers with GMB union in New Malden. Picketing workers with GMB union in New Malden.

Responding to a previous request for comment from the Surrey Comet, Centrica said the new contracts were necessary "to survive and protect 20,000 jobs" and acknowledged the fire and re-hire threat.

A spokesperson for the company said:

"Our business needs to change to survive and protect 20,000 jobs. We know change is difficult but we have offered a fair deal that has been negotiated over 300 hours with unions – where base pay and pensions are protected.

"Using dismissal and re-engagement has always been a final resort option. That’s why we have worked so hard to ensure that it has now been removed for a significant majority of our employees – eighty-three percent have already agreed to the new terms."