British Gas field engineers from New Malden and elsewhere protested in Windsor today (Wednesday, April 14) as the ultimatum over contract negotiations with parent company Centrica loomed.

Gas and boiler engineers affiliated with the GMB trade union who have worked in the field throughout the pandemic held banners aloft to show their support for colleagues who continue to refuse a new contract with the company many have deemed unacceptable.

They gathered outside the Centrica HQ in Windsor on the day that GMB said hundreds of engineers faced being sacked by the company.

New Malden engineer James, who works to support his family, was one of the workers who reluctantly accepted the contract offer from Centrica over fear of losing his job entirely.

"The company put the threat in after their latest offer. They said we had until March 25 to accept that offer, be fired and re-hired, or we would be effectively leaving the company," he said.

"I felt that I had to accept it. I was too fearful of losing my job or getting something worse," he added.

Since then, James said between 500 and 1,000 workers still didn't accept the offer tabled by Centrica on March 25, leading to Wednesday's final decision point that arrived after he said the company again pushed back the final deadline until today.

"It's all a big game really. It's a clear tactic from them to use fire and re-hire to bully people into accepting the contract in the way they want it," he said.

"We never thought it would go on this long and it has unified everyone. But it has been incredibly stressful...having months of not knowing if we're losing our jobs, it's been very tough."

A number of prominent Labour MPs took to Twitter in support of the strikers Wednesday, among them John McDonnell and former Labour leader Ed Miliband, who tweeted:

"The Government has been sitting on the ACAS report into whether to ban fire and rehire since 17th February.

"Why aren’t they doing anything about it?"

Centrica for their part insisted that there were jobs "for everyone" as the end of negotiations arrived, adding that their changes were necessary to protect the company's future.

As spokesperson for the company told the Surrey Comet:

"There is a job for everyone at the end of this process. We are changing the way we work to give our customers the service they want and protect the future of our company and 20,000 UK jobs.

"Today marks the end of the period for our employees to sign new contracts. These are highly competitive, and our changes are reasonable.

"We have not cut base pay or changed our generous final salary pensions...our gas service engineers remain some of the best paid in the sector.

"While change is difficult, reversing our decline which has seen us lose over three million customers, cut over 15,000 jobs and seen profits halved over the last 10 years is necessary."