Paul Kershaw, chair, Unite Housing workers branch LE 1111
Unite members at the homelessness charity St Mungo’s have voted to take a month-long strike from 30 May. Over the last decade the charity has increased its spending on senior managers by 350%. It has recently recruited a team of highly paid ‘transformation managers’ under a director who is paid around £130,000 per year.
Management says this is part of ‘rethinking our operating model.’ The rethink does not include protecting workers against inflation. St Mungo’s refuses to reveal the pay of newly appointed CEO Emma Haddad, but her predecessor was on £189,000 – representing a 77% increase in CEO pay since 2013.
In contrast, since 2010 frontline workers have seen their real pay fall by a quarter. Their annual leave has been cut and their hours increased. The current pay offer means a further cut in real pay. Management recently increased its pitiful 1.75% pay offer to a still pitiful 2.25 %. The offer was put to members and rejected by a margin of 91%.
On 11 May the government released figures showing a 22% increase in homelessness among people in full-time work, and St Mungo’s workers say they fear losing their homes due to the long-term attack on pay.
High-paid executives’ attempts to moralise about strikes has only fuelled workers’ anger. One worker comments: “Everyone in my team has really angsted about the decision to strike – we see our clients every day, so we know better than anyone how much they need us. But you can’t pour from an empty cup, and it’s getting to the stage where we can’t look after them the way we should anyway. Low pay isn’t just a problem in practical terms, though we are all struggling with skyrocketing rents and energy bills – it’s also pushing up our workloads as people go off sick with the stress of it, and some just leave.”
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Charity workers who are on the streets helping the homeless are now prepared to go on strike for a month for a decent wage. This shows what they think of the way they’ve been treated by St Mungo’s management. The pitiful pay offer has just made everyone in the union angrier. So, if the management at St Mungo’s want to avoid a month-long strike they have the answer in their own hands. Make Unite members a decent pay offer. Their indifference to the financial pressures facing their own staff is quite frankly astonishing.”
Unite Regional officer Steve O’Donnell commented: “Management’s behaviour is really backfiring. New members are joining in droves.”
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