British Gas staff to hold strike ballot

British Gas recently cut its gas tariffs by 7%

Staff at British Gas will be asked to vote in a strike ballot over alleged bullying by management, and on changes to staff terms and conditions.

The GMB trade union said its membership among gas engineers and other staff would be taking part in the ballot in the next few weeks.

The union accused the company of having a "culture of bullying, customer exploitation and profits at all costs".

But British Gas said that the union was misplaced with its accusations.

GMB general secretary Paul Kenny said: "This change of culture is very much the result of recent management changes."

The ballot started last Friday and involves 8,000 union members who work as gas engineers, central heating boiler engineers, and who work at distribution depots. The result will be published on 23 March.

The union said it had documentary evidence, from an email signed by the company's new head Phil Bentley, that it was planning to cut its support staff by 25%.

But a British Gas spokesman said: "We are extremely disappointed that yet again the GMB is repeating accusations about job cuts at British Gas, which are simply untrue.

"They continue to quote from an e-mail from June last year relating to reductions in headquarter costs which were announced last August.

"While we wrote some time ago, we have still not heard from the GMB as to what specific trade dispute they plan to strike over.

"We have in place robust contingency plans to ensure that, in the event of any industrial action, our service to customers is unaffected."