British Gas van, Photo: KRoock74/CC

British Gas van, Photo: KRoock74/CC   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

British Gas workers begin five days of strike action on Thursday 7 January, with potentially more to follow. It comes as bosses pursue a ‘fire and re-hire’ policy and issued an ultimatum for workers to agree cuts to pay, terms and conditions on pain of dismissal.

The strike ballot of GMB members returned an overwhelming 89% vote in favour of industrial action. Alongside the 4,500 service and repair gas engineers being called out on to strike will be 600 central heating installers, 540 electrical engineers, 170 specialist business gas engineers, and 1,700 smart metering engineers.