Four gas company bosses have trousered £31million between them before firing more than 5,000 workers.
Many remaining staff at Centrica, owners of British Gas, were told they will be given new contracts with more hours and less pay.
Justin Bowden, the national secretary of the GMB union which represents gas workers, said: “Centrica’s top brass have been paid a fortune while presiding over the terrible decline of a once-proud company.”
The union says Centrica’s own figures show that its top directors have “pocketed an astonishing £31million”.
That sum refers to the cumulative salaries of the firm’s top four executives over the past five years.
Mr Bowden said: “The bosses are rewarded handsomely for failure while loyal engineers, call centre workers and admin staff fund it all with redundancies, worse working conditions and pension cuts.”
The union’s attack comes after three rounds of redundancies at the firm and a share price fall from 271p five years ago to 48.7p now.
Centrica’s most recent financial reports show it has lost 226,000 of its 13 million customers over recent years. Mr Bowden said: “It proves the only thing the bosses can look after is themselves.”
The firm was re-graded from “stable” to “negative” by credit rating agency Moody’s last week.
Centrica CEO Chris O’Shea told shareholders: “Our mission is to turn the firm round by putting customers at the heart of all we do and creating a simpler, leaner, more sustainable company.”
