Unite Housing Workers branch members
St Mungo’s homelessness workers have entered their ninth week of indefinite action.
The workers are showing immense determination and courage to continue in the face of a highly intransigent and bullying management. There was no movement in talks at ACAS on 24 July, as the bosses irresponsibly drag the strike out.
Workers take confidence from the recent legal judgement overturning a Tory anti-union measure that allowed employers to use agency workers to break a strike. St Mungo’s have been able to keep some of their services running by relying on agency staff. This will cease as of 10 August.
This ruling is useful but we cannot rely on it exclusively – workers should take advantage of it by maintaining and strengthening the action.
Strikers are joining the picket lines with other workers on strike, such as doctors, transport workers, university workers and now traffic wardens in Camden, London. This marks an important phase in the strike, with workers increasingly realising that one of the strengths of the movement lies in linking up with other striking workers who are waging their own struggles on pay.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham has made a commitment to the strikers and Unite has put more resources into the dispute, determined to win and reach out to other workers in the homelessness sector.
Local authorities, especially Labour ones, cannot stand aside and watch as this rogue employer takes their money, keeps CEO pay secret, rewards senior management with a 5% pay increase (meaning they take almost five times the pay of the average worker at the charity), and then tells frontline workers that they can only afford 3.7% for them – and not even backdate it!
Senior management say they cannot afford to pay more, but fail to show evidence of this. We say: open the books! Unite reports that the March 2022 accounts show total surpluses of £6 million, and cash balances have rocketed to £22.5 million!
Labour authorities should intervene now by convening a meeting with Mungo’s senior management and Unite to resolve the dispute. If Mungo’s can show that they are genuinely unable to afford a decent wage for frontline staff then local authorities should step in to pay the difference.
