British Gas and personal Gas safe registration

[mickyg]

no i left a few years back, had enough, but still got friends and family working at BG.

 

[Gasman28]

This is going to get a mixed response I know. I was informed via a friendly TSM that there were some vacancies to join BG on a full time basis rather than being a contractor. I must admit, the thought had crossed my mind, but, it's the hours and politics that hold me back. What do you think?

 

[jumbo55]

dont do it mate, if the hours and politics get you down, your gonna be really stressed out after 10 minutes...

 

[nickso]

the union should be shouting about this from the highest rooftops, but they are strangely quiet, their stance is you were told so there is no defence, the bg stance is the same, you were told it would be treated as gross misconduct, and therefore no excuses, no mitigation, in the words of alan sugar... YOUR FIRED

hardly a surprise the union are not bothered about it.

1-its in the contract, not much of a defence available here.

2-the union are on the take and im sure they do very well off BG.

 

[jumbo55]

bg act like its a court of law, but the difference is that as opposed to the real law, the onus is on the accused to prove their innocence.

agree with nickso that gmb and bg are very very cosy, gmb are without doubt the worse union i have ever belonged to, quick to take the dues, slow and weak to defend you.

 

[nickso]

bg act like its a court of law, but the difference is that as opposed to the real law, the onus is on the accused to prove their innocence.

if you have seperate GSR then you are guilty. again, not much of a defence.

if you are caught on a job then you will probably be binned depending on your circumstances within the company.

if you are caught with a GSR then you will probably be given the opportunity to relinquish it and it will be forgotten about. again this will depend on your circumstances.

 

[Agile]

A Union has a single objective to defend and negotiate better working conditions for their employee members.

It is not their remit to set up a situation that their members are moonlighting all the time! The employment remuneration is meant to be sufficient to enable them to make a reasonable living from their normal employment. With BG earnings we hear of £30k to £40k thats sounds reasonable.

It therefore does not surprise me that the union is not encouraging moonlighting. Their expectation is that wherever possible voluntary overtime at a reasonable rate will be available to those employees who want to increase their hours and earnings.

When I was a branch secretary we never received anything more than nice sandwich lunches at the management liaison meetings. We also negotiated a reduction to a lower number of maintenance bases than the management had proposed. This was possible because we could better understand how the maintenance could be managed and to take into account the wishes of some managers who would welcome a redundancy deal and those who would not.

Tony

 

[jumbo55]

get with the program gas man, we are talking about membership of gsr, and the fact that bg will sack you no matter who you are.....i do enjoy your colourful stories though, i know of a bloke on the forest patch who got his computer stolen from the front seat of his van, he was sacked and the rest of the guys on the patch downed tools, he was re-instated the next day. an engineer who lost his license through drink when he smashed the bg van into a police car, still working for bg, the apprentices and servicing blokes used to chauffeur him,

 

[petit_pablo]

i know of a bloke on the forest patch who got his computer stolen from the front seat of his van, he was sacked and the rest of the guys on the patch downed tools, he was re-instated the next day.

And i know a bloke that had his stolen and didnt get anything done. Just a nice shiney new one sent out to him.

We all know "a bloke" thats been there, done it, got the t-shirt

 

[Gasman28]

There are always two sides to this discussion, but I feel that this topic should be presented in the CC. There, it can be debated without the general public being privvy.

 

[ollski]

but I feel that this topic should be presented in the CC. There, it can be debated without the general public being privvy.

and also without most of the contributors.

 

[newcomers]

Id just like to add that not everyone gets sacked for having their own GSR. I know someone who was offered the chance to cancel his GSR and keep his job, and I also know of someone who wasnt offered that option and shown the door.

They do take other things into consideration.

 

[glasgowgas]

Just seen a big brother review show, Eugene walked out with £50,000
for a couple of weeks work.

Am i meant to feel sorry for him FFS

 

[SoonToBeRich]

There are always two sides to this discussion, but I feel that this topic should be presented in the CC. There, it can be debated without the general public being privvy.

This topic has nothing to do with combustion, or gas safety in general - it's about the rights of the employer under contract and employment law.

If an employee acts (or fails to act) in such a way that it's viewable as gross misconduct, then it is unprotected by employment law. Any repudiatory breach of contract can be acted upon with immediate and summary dismissal. Otherwise, the misconduct must be handled by a disciplinary process that employment law terms as "reasonable" and "fair".

If the conscious behaviour of a BG employee conflicts with the provisions of his/her employee contract (which could be a variation to the original contract in the form of a memo or a letter), and where the contract term exists to protect the business of the employer, then it would seem that there's no fitting description other than gross misconduct.

If someone thinks that carrying out private gas/heating work doesn't constitute competition to BG, and thereby affect its business, then I'd be interested to see the reasoning.

In the case of gross misconduct, the employer is allowed to not sack the employee, if it so wishes. So "knowing a bloke" who was, or wasn't, "shown the door", has no relevance to anything. If every BG employee is flouting the rules, then BG can't afford to sack them all - keeping some of them is simply sensible.

 

[powell30]

I work as a service/repair engineer for one of the big boiler manufacter's. I too was told that a separate corgi registration (at the time) was not compatible with my job.

Several reasons but competition wasn't one of em. You are contracted solely and exclusively to them, and as a hse issue if you have done 5 days work then do another 2 for yourself when you should be resting you may be a danger to others on your return to work.

I have continued to keep my separate GSR registration, but do private work (almost exclusively installs...in my own time) and feel i am not 'cheating my employer. I refuse to work on any boiler they manufacter so i can look em in the eye and tell them i don't compete. I have been queried over booking days off so corgi (and gsr soon) want to inspect.

If push came to shove i would give up my registration.....but, in a strange twist we are constantly being offered boilers chep for family and friends?! by our employer. I have employed others when i was soley self employed and i too would sack an employee who directly offered to compete with me........

i wouldn't have an issue if he obtained private work so long as it wasn't directly in competion with me. I have sympathy with BG because they are (generally) all things to all men rather than being in a specific area of the gas industry (manufacturing, repair, install, etc) so their remit covers more areas than my employer