Action for Children staff are being balloted on strike action over contract changes and increasing senior management salaries.
The ballot is being carried out by unions Unite and Unison.
In a joint statement, the two unions have said that management at Action for Children “intends to impose a one per cent pay award for 2015/16, with no cost of living rise for 40 per cent of the 5,000 strong workforce”.
They also said that the charity intends to remove contractual pay increments for new starters, while refusing to play the UK living wage of £8.25 (or £9.40 in London), and cut mileage rates.
Both Unite and Unison’s ballots for “industrial action short of a strike/or strike action” open on Tuesday 26 January and close on Tuesday 16 February.
Unison has around 700 members working at Action for Children, while Unite has around 400. Action for Children employs a total of 3,478 staff, according to figures on the Charity Commission’s website.
Employees using foodbanks
Simon Watson, national voluntary sector officer at Unison, said: “The dedicated staff who work for Action for Children are without doubt its best resource. Every year they help thousands of vulnerable families in communities up and down the country.
“Action for Children claims that it is strapped for cash, yet it has managed to find the money to increase the number of its highest paid managers. Meanwhile staff haven’t had a pay rise in six years.
"The decision to move to a ballot for action is always a reluctant one, but despite over a year of negotiations, the charity still refuses to see sense. As a result many employees are being forced into extreme hardship. Some are having to use the same food banks as the families they are trying to help. It's still not too late to prevent action, and we hope the charity uses the coming weeks to think carefully about its next steps."
The unions have claimed that Sir Tony Hawkhead, the charity’s chief executive, has refused the unions’ request to involve the conciliation service Acas to resolve the dispute, and that he has stated his intention to “impose the pay offer overwhelmingly rejected by the joint union membership in consultative ballots”.
Hawkhead said that the charity has made "every effort to reach an agreement", and that they felt with the "limited budget available" it was "the best way forward".
Number of senior executives increased
The unions said that “while squeezing the pay of the workforce”, the number of senior executives at the charity earning over £70,000 a year increased from 16 to 21, and there is now an additional member of the management team on £120,000.
The unions added that in the last three years, the charity has “made an made an average surplus (profit) of £5.4m each year, while it would have cost about £2m a year to have given each member of staff a cost of living pay rise in line with inflation”.
According to Action for Children’s accounts, the number of staff earning over £60,000 went up in 2015 from 2014 by one – up to 45. However, the total staff costs fell from £116.6m in 2014, to £109.6m in 2015.
Sally Kosky, national officer for the not for profit sector at Unite, said: “What we have here is an all too common case of a profitable organisation, with highly paid executives, unwilling to give a decent pay rise to our members. Average pay of the workforce has fallen in real terms by 52 per cent since 2010/11.
“The management is behaving in a high-handed manner trying to bulldoze a wholly inadequate pay offer onto our members and point blank refusing to involve Acas in the dispute. Just because people work for a charity they don’t deserve the prospect of poverty wages.
“The organisation has a healthy surplus and some of these reserves should be used to fairly reward its hard-working staff.”
Action for Children responds
Sir Tony Hawkhead, chief executive at Action for Children, said: "The role that trade unions represents in the work place is highly regarded by Action for Children. Throughout the whole extended process during which we have been in discussions with the unions, we have made every effort to reach an agreement.
“In the current operating climate, Action for Children has considered the various affordable possibilities available to it. The board and senior management agreed that the best way forward, with the limited budget available, was to use it for those members of staff who would otherwise receive almost nothing. Other staff would still receive their standard increment as they progress within their salary band.”
