The union has received many telephone calls from worried GMB security members stating that officers are being laid off because their employers cannot find work for them post-20 March as they don’t yet possess a licence. Members are reporting that their employers have been remiss in their training programmes, have failed to help their employees through the licensing process and are expecting the officers to pay the licence fee of GB pound 190.
Speaking at the GMB Commercial Services Conference in Brighton on 22 February, Smith told delegates: “The major companies have worked with the SIA and are on schedule, but many other contractors are not. Their failure to address the issue has put our members at risk of redundancy or committing a criminal offence if they work after 20 March unlicensed.”
Smith is also “gravely concerned” that the criteria for ACS have been “watered down” to allow companies to use their existing British Standards as a way of passporting into the SIA’s scheme.
