The Green Party Trade Union Group on Friday expressed its solidarity with UCU members at Richmond upon Thames College, who are fighting against management plans to fire workers and rehire them on worse pay, terms, and conditions.

The bosses’ plans mark another occasion on which administrators at educational institutions are using the pretext of difficult times to impose swingeing cuts on their workforce.

In a message to the UCU branch at the college, the Group’s membership officer Pete Murry said:

“No workers deserve to be treated with contempt by management through the threat of fire and rehire. Further Education is vital to prepare for a future low carbon economy, it cannot be properly run on such a shambolic and exploitative basis.

“GPTU hopes that UCU at Richmond upon Thames College will prevail against this threat.”

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Green Party members came together at their Autumn Conference in support of the private members’ bill to stop ‘fire and rehire’.

The bill would make the practice, in which workers are dismissed and rehired on worse terms, illegal in the UK. It is proposed by Labour MP Barry Gardiner and supported by a cross party group including Green MP Caroline Lucas.

Greens congregated as the bill was being heard in the House of Commons, in a show of support and solidarity with workers fighting the abhorrent practice.

But despite widespread condemnation of the practice the government whipped its MPs to oppose the private members bill by denying a vote on the practice.

Speaking after the demo, Trade Union Group Communications Officer Martin Francis said:

“I’m proud that the Green Party stands against the practice of fire-and-rehire, and express my full support for Barry Gardiner’s bill in parliament today.

“This struggle will continue beyond today, and it is vital that the labour movement and its allies remain steadfast in the fight to eliminate the abhorrent practice of fire-and-rehire once and for all.”

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Green Party spokespeople and campaigners, including the Green MP Caroline Lucas, backed the non-partisan campaign to ban the practice of ‘Fire and Rehire’ in the UK.

The Stop Fire And Rehire campaign is a union-led campaign to outlaw the practice, in which workers are fired from their positions before being rehired on new contracts with worse pay and conditions. If workers refuse to accept worse conditions, they lose their job.

While ‘Fire and Rehire’ has been a tactic beloved of bosses for years, it has gone into overdrive during the Covid-19 pandemic. It has been deployed especially against unionised workplaces, aiming to tear up conditions, reduce morale, and break the back of union organisation.

Caroline Lucas supports Barry Gardiner’s private member’s bill to ban ‘Fire and Rehire’, which has drawn support from among all Westminster parliamentary parties. The bill is supported by a coalition of trade unions and local authority administrations.

Describing the practice as “sheer greed” that “needs to stop”, Lucas called on the government to back Gardiner’s proposals.

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