OVER 100 striking St Mungo’s workers and other trade unionists lobbied City Hall yesterday lunchtime demanding better pay and conditions.
There will be a further mass rally at the St Mungo’s HQ in St Thomas More St Tower Hill at 12 noon today, with further rallies and other actions every day during the month-long strike by the more than 500 homelessness charity workers, which began on Tuesday 30th May and continues until Monday 26th June.
The Unite union said yesterday: ‘City Hall gave the charity an extra £2 million in grants while St Mungo’s are attempting to force poverty wages on their own street workers.’
Unite general secretary, Sharon Graham said: ‘Unite members at St Mungo’s are on the frontline fighting for the homeless. But the Mayor’s generous funding for rough sleeping services is not being fairly shared with the very workers who deliver these crucial services for the city.
‘Low pay means St Mungo’s workers are at risk of losing their own homes. Imagine that! A homeless charity confronting its own workers with ending up on the street themselves.
‘So today we are calling on Sadiq Khan to intervene and call St Mungo’s management to account and demand they be paid a decent wage.’
Unite member Lorna Fraser told News Line: ‘Sadly there hasn’t been a huge amount of development in terms of negotiation, which is disappointing. It makes me anxious to think that senior management are so unreasonable.
‘They are refusing to show us their accounts, which we have asked for, because they do not want us to see that they have enough money to pay us decent wages and have decent conditions.
‘We could have come to a more progressive outcome but they will not negotiate. We know that the management have been given big pay rises at the same time as our pay has been held down.
‘I agree with a general strike, something has got to give in this society. It’s hard to stomach living under this Tory government. I can’t believe we’ve got to this point, but people are being driven to take action, because they have to.’
Guardi, University and College Union Branch Chair at University College London, brought greetings to yesterday’s rally and said: ‘People know that the UCU are also in dispute. We have been pushed into a corner like you have.
‘In terms of a lot of universities the money is there but they will not spend it on staffing. We will not accept carrying on without a proper pay rise.
‘Your dispute is so important, not just because you are working for a charity, but because services are being destroyed by this government. You, like those in the education sector, work with the most vulnerable in society, the young and those who need services.
‘Workers must be treated decently, with decent pay, and conditions, and that is why we support all workers on strike. Congratulations on it being a month-long strike. These are the actions that we need to carry out.
‘We oppose all cuts. Any management that is treating workers poorly, we will fight them. We are fighting to win our struggle and we hope you carry on and win your struggle too.’
