Former Inverness Scottish Gas engineer hopes work dispute will lead to law changes

A Highland man says a work dispute with his former employers has been "horrible" and hopes it will lead to a change in employment law.

Daniel Caie, who used to work for Scottish Gas, is one of hundreds across the UK who have refused to sign a new contract.

He lost his job yesterday after refusing to sign a deal which sees contracts streamlined to 40 hours, without extra pay.

Centrica, who own Scottish Gas, say only 2% of their workforce have refused the new deal.

Negotiations, which began around nine months ago, came to an end yesterday as staff were told to sign the contract or leave the company.

There was also strike action between January and April.

Daniel, from Inverness, worked with Scottish Gas for 10 years and has no resentment towards his local colleagues.

He said: "It's not the local guys my gripe is with, it's senior management.

"It's horrible that they would treat you like a number.

"I don't think the business properly appreciate that gas engineers don't come out of a factory, prefabricated.

"We're an industry that requires experience.

"You can have the qualifications, but it takes years to get good at the job.

"To be treated like you're just a number, when you've got quite a valuable skill which you've spent years owning is a hard one to take."

Daniel says the dispute could be a "make or break" for workers' rights.

He added: "It's a morally bankrupt thing to do, but my understanding is that it's within legal framework.

"All I can hope is that there's that much public pressure now they've done it, that it causes some re-assessment and tightening of the law.

"So that nobody has to go through this."

Centrica say they had to make the changes to "protect the future" of all their employees.

"We are changing the way we work to give our customers the service they want and protect the future of our company and 20,000 UK jobs.

"The changes we need to make are reasonable and 98% of the entire company has accepted new contracts.

"We have not cut base pay or changed our generous final salary pensions. Our gas service engineers remain some of the best paid in the sector, earning £40,000 a year minimum.

"While change is difficult, reversing our decline which has seen us lose over three million customers, cut over 15,000 jobs and seen profits halved over the last 10 years is necessary.

"The changes will also unlock our ability to grow jobs and hire 1000 green apprentices over the next two years."