Centrepoint staff to strike after second ballot

Governance | Celina Ribeiro | 4 Nov 2011

Centrepoint staff have voted for three days of strike action after an early strike ballot was contested in a legal battle with management.

Unite the Union has today announced that its members at the homelessness charity will strike on 10 and 11 November as well as on the 30th, coinciding with widespread public sector worker strikes on the same date.

The union’s strike ballot in September resulted in a 70-30 split in favour of strike action, but the charity disputed its legitimacy based on what Unite claims were “legal technicalities”.

The latest ballot, which ran from 26 October until yesterday, however, produced a less resounding vote for strike action, with 55 per cent of members voting in favour and 45 per cent against.

However, Centrepoint has questioned the validity of this ballot also. A statement from the charity said: "The first ballot was flawed on a number of grounds, not least that Unite deprived several of its members the right to vote.

"The validity of the second ballot process is also questionable after similar errors were made. These included balloting individuals that had either already left the organisation or were on some form of long-term maternity or sick leave. Given the low turnout in votes, these discrepancies are material to the outcome."

Matt Smith, the union’s regional officer, said: “Despite all the management’s efforts, our members have again voted for strike action. It is very unfair that our members pay will be cut so much that they could fail to keep up their mortgage and rental repayments and join the very people they are dedicated to help.”

The union claims that 112 of the charity’s 212 staff stand to lose “thousands of pounds” in pay a year, and criticises the charity for ring-fencing top executives’ salaries.

Directory: Centrepoint

Comments

[Cancel] | Reply to:

Name *

Email *

Organisation

Job Title

Comments *

Verification *

* Please read our Community Standards

Close »

Community Standards

The civilsociety.co.uk community and comments board is intended as a platform for informed and civilised debate.

We hope to encourage a broad range of views, however, there are standards that we expect commentators to uphold. We reserve the right to delete or amend any comments that do not adhere to these standards.

We welcome:

Robust but respectful debate
Strongly held opinions
Intelligent relevant discussion
The sharing of relevant experiences
New participants

We will not publish:

Rude, threatening, offensive, obscene or abusive language, or links to such material
Links to commercial organisations or spam postings. The comments board is not an advertising platform
The posting of contact details for yourself or others
Comments intended for malicious purpose or mindless abuse
Comments purporting to be from another person or organisation under false pretences
Gratuitous criticism, commentary or self-promotion
Any material which breaches copyright or privacy laws, or could be considered libellous
The use of the comments board for the pursuit or extension of personal disputes

Be aware:

Views expressed on the comments board are left at users’ discretion and are in no way views held or supported by Civil Society Media
Comments left by others may not be accurate, do not rely on them as fact
You may be misunderstood - sarcasm and humour can easily be taken out of context, try to be clear

Please:

Enjoy the opportunity to express your opinion and respect the right of others to express theirs
Confine your remarks to issues rather than personalities

Together we can keep our community a polite, respectful and intelligent platform for discussion.