Workers Struggles: Europe, Middle East and Africa
11 February 2021
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Energy engineers at British Gas continue strikes
Engineers at energy company British Gas, part of the Centrica group, are continuing their programme of strikes. British Gas supplies gas and electric energy and services equipment and has around 20,000 employees.
A four-day strike is due to begin today, with further four-day actions planned for February 19 and 26. The GMB union members are opposing “fire and rehire” plans by British Gas to undermine workers’ conditions and cut pay by 20 percent.
Around 7,500 workers are involved, including 4,000 service and repair gas engineers, 1,700 smart metering engineers, 600 central heating installers, 540 electrical engineers and 170 specialist business gas engineers. The strikes have led to a backlog of 170,000 boiler repairs and the delay of 200,000 service visits.
Openreach Engineers Launch Two-Day Strike In Job Grading Dispute lse.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from lse.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
18 months of dispute over new grading structure and counting.
Paul Kunert Thu 18 Feb 2021 // 16:30 UTC Share
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The Communication Workers Union (CWU) is trying to crank up the pressure on Openreach top brass ahead of next week s planned strike action by adding three more days to the protest campaign.
Repayment project engineers (RPEs) are scheduled to down tools for around 48 hours from 24 February over a change of the grading structure that will reduce the salary, holiday entitlement, and other Ts&Cs for new starters.
A formal ballot of the 170-strong team was held in January and 120 of the 143 that showed up voted for industrial action. The CWU was today warning of a three additional consecutive strike days from 3 March.
BT-owned broadband plumbing biz says it s surprised and saddened
Paul Kunert Wed 13 Jan 2021 // 09:30 UTC Share
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The Communication Workers Union (CWU) has told Openreach it is to ballot members on industrial action following what it claims is the company s decision to ignore consultation and instead hire engineers on a different grade and structure.
The specific area of Openreach that CWU said is the subject of an ongoing dispute is Repayments Projects, a unit tasked with diverting already laid copper wires and fibre cables for new developments including HS2, a high-speed rail line linking up London, the Midlands, the North, and Scotland.