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St Mungo’s staff vote in favour of strike action
Hundreds of staff members working for homeless charity St Mungo’s are set to go on strike following a dispute over contract conditions.
Unite balloted over 500 members who work at the homelessness charity, of which 53% voted. Of those who voted, 83.7% voted in favour of strike action.
The issues in the dispute include an alteration of the charity’s junior staffing cap, which limits the number of entry level staff members on a team, and a disagreement over the company’s sickness policy.
This is the second ballot of St Mungo’s Unite members in less than six months, after the first ballot missed the 50% threshold.
Unite is now calling on local authority commissioners of St Mungo’s homelessness services to put pressure on chief executive Howard Sinclair to return to the negotiating table for last-ditch talks.
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The union is warning that a strike could cause disruption to service delivery in councils across the London and the South of England.
Mr Sinclair recently announced that he would be stepping down from his role as chief executive, six years after taking up the role.
The announcement came one week after Mr Sinclair was forced to apologise as an internal review revealed that members of the charity’s outreach teams shared information about homeless people with the Home Office.
A meeting of Unite workplace representatives will take place over the next few days to decide the next steps.
Tabusam Ahmed, regional officer at Unite, said: “The last thing our members want is to cause hardship to vulnerable homeless people. But after more than a year of having their demands to be treated more fairly ignored, they’ve had enough.
“This was a resounding vote against a heavy-handed and bullying management style.
“If the strikes go ahead, the services councils rely on to support vulnerable, homeless people in their areas will be disrupted, but this is the responsibility of senior management.
“Unite has been seeking to resolve these matters with the employer for over a year.”
Mr Sinclair said: “We are disappointed with the ballot result. We made a series of offers that Unite officials refused to engage with. Our offers remain on the table.
"We are not cutting pay, altering staff terms and conditions nor making enforced redundancies. We continue to believe a strike is disproportionate and unnecessary, based on the ballot points made and are asking our Unite members to encourage their Unite representatives to help us resolve this dispute at [conciliation service] ACAS.
“Our contingency planning will now have to ramp up, but I want to reassure people that our priority remains to protect our vulnerable clients during these winter months.
“Our efforts remain focused on listening and addressing staff concerns. We urge Unite officials to discuss these so we can build a better relationship with Unite for the future. St Mungo’s will continue to do everything necessary to protect the safety and interests of our most vulnerable clients.”
