Fire and Rehire
How companies undermine their workers for profit.
In 2020, British Gas offered its engineers a choice: accept a new contract with longer working hours, or lose your job. This is a tactic used by employers across the world and throughout history; it has been the cause of countless strikes and the slow and steady erosion of workers’ rights within the UK.
The fire and rehire tactic demonstrates the lack of concern or empathy employers can feel for their staff. Despite working for British Gas for over thirty years, engineers were wracked with worry over their future at the company. Dedicating your life to a megacorporation such as British Gas in no way secures your employment.
Due to the work of their union, and the solidarity amongst striking workers, British Gas engineers piled pressure on their employers for over nine months. Whilst hundreds of them were forced to accept the new, worse conditions or lose their jobs, the fight against the legal practice of fire and rehire continues. Sharon Graham, newly-elected general secretary of Unite, described fire and rehire as an “abhorrence”, having “[moved] from opportunism to standard practice”. In June 2021, Barry Gardiner MP introduced a Private Member’s Bill seeking to outlaw the practice in the UK; the bill heads to its second reading on October 22nd.
Another British company embroiled in a fire and rehire dispute is Clarks. Over 100 staff at their main distribution centre in Somerset have been on strike for two weeks, after being told they “must sign new contracts or risk losing their jobs without redundancy pay”. Proposed wage changes include a cut of almost 15%, dropping the average from £11.16 an hour to £9.50. The company cites losses during the pandemic as the reason for the cuts, but a union spokesperson reminds us of the real victims of the changes: “at the end of the day, with such a big pay cut, we're left with members who won’t be able to pay their own bills and support their own families."
The legality of a practice in no means ensures its morality. Grassroots and community campaigns, like the strikes organised by British Gas and Clarks employees, and broader movements seeking to outlaw the fire and rehire practice must work in tandem to protect workers of the present and the future. For every campaign against fire and rehire that draws national attention, there are more workplaces organising resistance every day. From airlines to Weetabix, this practice is being wielded against workers in an attempt to undermine their rights, their collective action, and their livelihoods.