Dear colleagues
Please join us for the members’ meeting at 5.30 today. Joining details:
As you know, the current dispute is about pay. Our wages have fallen by nearly 25% in real terms since 2014. In real terms, what we have demanded is not a pay rise. We have not even asked for all the 25% pay cut to be restored, just part of it.
St Mungo’s senior management have made some odd statements about the dispute. Recently, the BBC reported Emma Haddad as claiming to have offered a 10% pay rise. The offer was for £1 million more in total wages across the entire organisation, compared to a total wages bill of £61.3 million in 2021/22. Try dividing 1 million by 61.3 million and see whether your calculator works better than Emma’s.
There have also been claims that St Mungo’s ‘cannot afford’ to pay wages that keep up with inflation. Sadly, senior management are extremely secretive about financial information but the last published accounts show a cash balance of £22.5 million. We would like to see St Mungo’s management accounts to establish whether that balance is still there. If it isn’t, we want to see the accounts to find out where it has gone.
If we could have achieved a just outcome to this dispute without calling a strike, we would have done so. We spent more than a year trying to avoid industrial action. If we are going to bring management to the negotiating table, we need to redouble our efforts. If you are on strike, thank you. If you are at work, please join the strike.
The weather is mostly sunny and the strike pay isn’t bad. And it’s the fastest way to bring the dispute to an end.
Best wishes
Jacob
Jacob Sanders
Unite Convenor, St Mungo’s
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