St Mungo’s homelessness charity workers begin month-long strike | Industrial action

Workers at the homelessness charity St Mungo’s will begin a month-long strike on Tuesday in a dispute over pay.

Members of Unite who work at the organisation will mount picket lines outside its head office in Tower Hill in London and in Brighton, Bristol and Oxford. The union said the industrial action was over a “pitiful” pay offer of 2.25%, which was made in April 2023.

The Unite general secretary, Sharon Graham, said: “Charity workers who should be on the streets helping the homeless have reached breaking point … The workers are now taking a stand.

“Instead of seizing the initiative to end the dispute, management’s decision to offer a pitiful 2.25% has spectacularly backfired. Now St Mungo’s faces a month-long strike and the workers have Unite’s total support. The pitiful pay offer has just made everyone in the union angrier.

“St Mungo’s 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.”

On the charity’s website, St Mungo’s said it could not afford to meet the union’s pay demands, claiming it would “not remain financially viable as an organisation”.

It said it was committed to paying fair wages and claimed staff in client-facing roles were paid more than at other organisations providing similar services.

Emma Haddad, chief executive of St Mungo’s, said: “Our latest offer, combined with the annual pay rise proposed by the national joint council, would have meant a pay rise of at least 10% for those colleagues on the lowest salaries.

“This is what Unite has been asking for but voted against it. After all our efforts to find a solution to this dispute, a four-week strike is unprecedented and disproportionate.

“It will impact vulnerable people at risk of or recovering from homelessness. My door remains open to Unite, every day during the strike.”

Unite balloted more than 500 workers across southern England including in London, Bristol, Brighton, Oxford, Bournemouth and Reading. The strike will begin on 30 May and end on 26 June.