Unite, the UK’s leading union, is preparing to formally ballot hundreds of its members at City & Guilds over sudden and ‘vindictive’ work from home policies.

City & Guilds has instructed all staff that they must work from the office for at least two days a week and more if instructed, even though many workers were employed on the basis of working remotely and have been doing so since well before Covid. Moreover, current CEO Andy Moss has previously encouraged the offering of flexible location contracts as a strategy to overcome recruitment difficulties.

City & Guilds does not provide overnight accommodation or expenses for staff who live long distances, often hundreds of miles, from the offices they are expected to attend. Those with children are also facing significant difficulties with arranging costly day and overnight childcare due to the new policy.

Unite believes the sudden diktat has been issued from City & Guilds new Greek owner PeopleCert as a way to try and force workers out of their jobs without announcing redundancies.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “This is a blatant and unfair attack on the workforce to try and make redundancies on the cheap. “City & Guilds workers can see straight through PeopleCert’s attempts to cull its workforce with this totally unjustifiable and vindictive policy. Unite will not stand for it – these workers have their union’s total backing.”

A consultative ballot of Unite members at City & Guilds found 97 per cent in favour of industrial action and the union will begin the process of formally balloting workers over the coming weeks.

Unite has already forced the controversial new owners, who bought City & Guilds a year ago, to back down from a previous set of ‘dishonest’ redundancy plans.

In June, Unite threatened legal and industrial action against PeopleCert for advertising jobs in Greece and the UK while being in the middle of redundancy consultations. Workers at risk of redundancy are legally entitled to be given first refusal on new roles.

The dispute also centred around a leaked PeopleCert business plan stating that it was planning to shed around a third of its 1,300 strong City & Guilds workforce. Unite accused PeopleCert of unlawfully withholding key information during transfer consultations.

Unite national officer Peter Storey said: “Thanks to the collective strength of the workforce, Unite forced PeopleCert to backdown from its previous dishonest plans. But we warned at the time that Unite would remain vigilant and we have been proved right.

“There has been no serious meaningful consultation or negotiation from PeopleCert about fundamental changes to people’s working arrangements andTags work from home policies. PeopleCert needs to backdown because its current plans will blow up in its face.”

ENDS