Dear constituent,

Thank you for contacting me about “fire and rehire”, where employers dismiss workers in order to re-employ them on inferior pay and worse terms and conditions.

I agree with you on this important issue. Fire and rehire tactics are wrong and should be outlawed. Using the threat of unemployment to reduce pay and diminish terms and conditions is against British values, undermines good employers, harms working people and damages our economy.

Unfortunately, this practice seems to have become more common during the pandemic. The TUC, for example, has found that nearly one in ten workers has been told to reapply for their job on worse terms and conditions since the first lockdown in March 2020. I know that workers at British Airways (BA) and Centrica/British Gas have been on strike against attempts to negotiate changes to their pay and conditions while threatening to dismiss employees and rehire them on new terms if they are unable to reach an agreement. The workers at British Gas have my full solidarity and support, and I congratulate the British Airways workers who have successfully secured a deal to end the use of fire and rehire at the company.

I believe it is completely unacceptable for companies to try to force through changes to employees’ pay, terms and conditions using fire and rehire. This is not a negotiating tactic, but a threat to workers. Entering negotiations threatening to impose reduced terms and conditions anyway completely undermines the whole process of negotiation. It allows employers to exploit workers, knowing that in an increasingly uncertain employment market, those facing the threat of redundancy cannot say no to changes. It also allows bad employers to undermine those who care about and invest in their staff. After a decade of pay restraint and in the middle of a deep recession, it is the last thing workers need. It is unethical and it should be banned.

In January, I supported a call in the House of Commons for the Government to set out by the end of the month a timetable for banning fire and rehire. Unfortunately, the Government did not support this call. Nevertheless, I can assure you that I will continue to support calls for action on this issue to stop firms from treating employees in this immoral, illogical and counter-productive way.

Thank you once again for contacting me.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Dowd MP