St Mungo’s Broadway strikers protest outside Mare Street hostel

Unite members outside the hostel on Mare Street. Photograph: Bryan Kennedy

Workers from charity St Mungo’s Broadway protested outside a Mare Street hostel today over pay and changes to contracts.

This is the first of seven days of strike action, which is taking place nationwide.

Over 600 members of staff from the charity St Mungo’s Broadway are taking part because of changes which increase a £5,000 pay difference for new workers.

The strikers are unhappy with the new executive team in charge of the charity, who introduced the changes without consulting workers.

Howard Sinclair, Chief Executive of St Mungo’s Broadway, has been criticised for calling his announcement of the changes a “retrospective consultation”.

Nicky Marcus, a Unite representative said: “They have slashed the pay of new starters by £5,000-a-year for a project worker, and for existing staff being restructured; taken pay out of collective bargaining; imposed new, draconian policies and procedures; and breached the recognition agreement with Unite repeatedly.

“Staff are furious. They are simply not prepared to stand by and watch the heart and soul being ripped out of their organisation.”

Bryan Kennedy, a union representative in Hackney, was part of the picket line on Mare Street. He said: “Inside the hostel they actually have a couple of spare rooms that they give to the council for emergency accommodation over the weekend when they can’t place someone and they do that for free.”

“These hostels are essential for Hackney.”

Mr Kennedy explained that the charity is able to win large contracts over other providers because of the number of additional services they provide as well as the quality of staff, and he questioned the need for cost-cutting.

Mr Kennedy also stressed how the changes to new contracts would create a two-tier system that could threaten existing staff. He said: “What St Mungo’s has that other providers do not have is they do believe in their ethos, they do not have a high staff turnover or anything like other employers and they actually see what the risk is if you have somebody come in and try to create a two tiered workforce because they know it is only a progression until those people get replaced.”

Mr Sinclair said: “I am obviously disappointed that industrial action is going ahead, given that we are not cutting jobs or the pay or terms and conditions of existing staff. I am willing, as I always have been, to meet with Union representatives at any time to discuss alternative suggestions to managing the challenges we face.

“Our priority remains providing services of the highest quality for the increasing numbers of clients we are seeing, within the ever tighter economic environment. We are working very hard to ensure that all our services for homeless people continue to run as normal for the duration of the strike.”

St Mungo’s Broadway runs hostels for homeless people and helps to prevent homelessness. In Hackney, they operate two hostels, two support services and over a dozen housing projects.

A picket line will be held outside the Mare Street hostel on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning and a demonstration will be held outside Hackney Town Hall at 12pm on Wednesday.

For more information about the reasons for the strike, click here.