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British Gas workers displayed their frustration at company bosses at a strike outside Caerphilly Castle earlier today, Friday, March 5.

The engineers, represented by the GMB Union, are in a pay dispute with British Gas owner Centrica.

Thousands of British Gas engineers across the country will down tools for four days from today until March 8 over the company’s plan to sack them and rehire them on worse terms and conditions.

These are strike days 27 to 30 of the ongoing dispute.

In a statement on the GMB website, Justin Bowden, GMB National Secretary, said: “British Gas’ fire and rehire plan is the main obstacle to members accepting a deal – they need to remove it now if we are to progress.

“GMB’s executive has determined action could continue to mid-April in this deadlocked dispute.

“After 26 days of strikes, more than 210,000 homes are in a backlog for repairs and 250,000 planned annual service visits have been axed.

“The company is misleading the media that it is catching up after 24 hours.”

In a statement Centrica said: “We had hoped to make the changes needed to our employee terms and conditions through a collective agreement, as we did with our other unions.

“We must now progress with individual consultation for the remaining engineers who have not already agreed to the new terms.

The new contracts are part of changes announced last summer to simplify and modernise our business and protect 20,000 UK jobs.

“We need to reverse a decline that has seen us lose over three million customers, cut over 15,000 jobs and seen profits halved over the last ten years.”