Shelter staff walked out of their Old Street office on Monday

WORKERS at a homelessness charity are out on strike amid warnings they cannot pay their rent.

Shelter staff walked out of their Old Street office on Monday after pay negotiations with charity bosses broke down late last week.

Shelter, a charity that works to support people with housing issues and the homeless, offered its workers a 3 per cent pay increase in the spring.

“We rejected that offer because at the time it was far behind inflation – now it’s even further behind,” said Unite union rep Tarun Bhakta.

Since then, workers have been awarded several one-off payments totalling £1,500. But Mr Bhakta said: “That’s not an increase to our salaries – we will not have that money in our salaries next year.”

Mr Bhakta, who works in Shelter’s policy team, said striking workers were waiting for a “genuine pay offer, one we can put to members that is enough to meet the cost of living.

“We’re hearing from our members that they’re struggling to meet their rent or heat their homes, single mothers unable to keep their children warm,” he said. “It’s not good enough for a charity whose job it is to keep roofs over people’s heads.”

Unless a new pay offer is negotiated, the strikes will last for two weeks until December 18. “We’ll strike for two weeks if that’s what it takes,” Mr Bhakta said.

According to Mr Bhakta, Unite workers are “realistic about the situation – we know inflation is at a long-time high, and we’re not asking for an inflation-matching pay rise. We’re open to negotiating. We want a genuine pay offer that we know Shelter can afford. The current pay award is really far behind inflation so people on the lowest pay band can’t meet the cost of living.”

He said charity workers often end up working harder for less pay because they are fighting for a cause they believe in.

“In my day job, I’m a campaigner on housing and homelessness – I spend all my time developing policy to tell the government and local authorities how to improve things for families, so they can flourish in life and have a good foundation,” he said.

“There’s that old cliché, which I don’t really like, that says ‘we’re here to work ourselves out of a job’. But the thing is, just because we really care about it doesn’t mean we ought to accept pay cuts.”

Tim Gutteridge, director of finance and strategy enablement at Shelter, said: “Regrettably the cost-of-living crisis is impacting both our colleagues and operational costs, and we are doing everything we can to navigate these challenging economic times. Industrial action is not the outcome we wanted after months of talks with the union, but we fully respect people’s right to strike.

“Our ambition remains trying to support colleagues through this difficult period, while being able to deliver our frontline services and campaign work. This year we gave all staff a pay rise – which for non-management staff means an increase of between 8 per cent and 12.3 per cent – consisting of a 3 per cent consolidated increase and a one-off payment of £1,500. As a Real Living Wage employer, Shelter is also implementing the Real Living Wage Foundation’s increase of 10.1 per cent from December 2022, much earlier than required, benefiting the colleagues who receive this at the earliest opportunity.”