Fire and rehire battle continues

The fight against fire and rehire continues into 2022. In December, more than 1,500 workers at construction materials firm Marshalls were handed redundancy notices. According to Unite, Marshalls is threatening to fire them in order to get them onto new contracts with vastly different shift patterns.

The company refused to enter into negotiations around the redundancies and its decision comes despite the recent publication of new Acas guidance to employers discouraging them from using fire and rehire practices.

Meanwhile, UNISON members who work for two separate leisure centres run by Sandwell Leisure Trust took strike in action in December in an ongoing fight against their employer’s fire and rehire policy.

In March 2021, Sandwell Leisure Trust fired and rehired all 280 staff in order to remove them from national pay, terms and conditions. The workers have since walked out many times to fight against the decision and against further cuts to their terms and conditions.

Sandwell branch secretary Tony Barnsley, said: “Despite promising not to make any further changes to terms other than pay until March 2022, management have now sent the trade unions proposals to make any Covid-related absence count towards targets and triggers. This effectively breaks their own promise.”