STRIKING British Gas engineers are ramping up industrial action against the company’s fire-and-rehire tactics, with three more four-day stoppages announced today.

As some 7,000 workers downed tools again for a four-day strike straddling the weekend, the GMB union said that action would continue in a similar pattern, starting every Friday, for the rest of February.

The dispute centres on the company’s attempt – using tactics that even Tory ministers have condemned – to impose pay cuts and inferior conditions that would lead to engineers working up to 150 more hours a year without pay.