Government intervention required after devastating announcement
The GMB Union responded to today's announcement by Npower who have said that they will be cutting 900 roles from its current workforce of 6,300 workers. Npower cited a challenging retail energy market as the reason including the energy price cap.
Laura Gatiss, GMB Northern Regional Organiser said:
"The GMB is on record as saying that Ofgem should be abolished and its regulatory functions are taken over by the government itself, making its regulatory role subject to scrutiny and accountable to Parliament with the powers to cap prices. However what we have with this announcement by Npower is a kick in the teeth for the workforce many of whom are GMB members.
"It is only a few short years ago that Npower offshored customer relations work and in the process closed sites in the North East and rationalised work around Rainton Bridge in Houghton-le-Spring. The Company then after a period of time, brought that work back into the UK when that strategic decision clearly had not worked."
Ms Gatiss said that the GMB would be working night and day to ensure that compulsory redundancies was absolutely minimised.
She said:
"Just a few months ago Npower was involved in causing great uncertainty to the workforce by announcing that it was involved in merger talks with one of the other "Big Six" energy companies. That merger failed. Now Npower is announcing major job reductions which is understandably worrying for our members, their families and indeed local communities where our members live in. We will be doing all in our power to help and support our members as well as campaigning to ensure that this sector is reformed."
