Homelessness charities often berate private landlords for putting income before service to tenants.

But a bitter dispute at one organisation has apparently revealed the chief executive’s high salary. 

Unite the Union claims the CEO of St Mungo’s homelessness charity receives some £189,000 per year.

There is currently an industrial dispute over pay involving the charity’s workers: Unite is accusing bosses of bribing in agency workers to break the dispute.

There.is what the union calls “a solidarity rally” in London today.

And in a strongly worded statement Unite general secretary, Sharon Graham, says: “Companies and organisations had already begun to use agency workers as a way to break legal strikes. Pitting worker against worker in an attempt to union bust. As of 10 August, this will no longer be an avenue hostile employers can use.

“St Mungo’s now needs to focus on solving this long running dispute. They need to stop looking for ways to break the strike and start looking for ways to solve it.

“St Mungo’s seems happy to increase rents and service charges by above inflation and to up their CEO’s £189,000 pay by five per cent, yet they refuse to treat workers fairly. Now is the time to do the right thing.”

St Mungo’s told Landlord Today: “As St Mungo’s is in the middle of negotiations with Unite the Union, we are not in a position to disclose the salaries of members of our senior executive team. 

“We have made a new offer aimed at resolving the pay dispute and we will be discussing the detail with Unite representatives over the coming days. 

“We are doing everything we can to work with Unite, so together we can end this dispute at a time when the demand for our services is increasing. We need to ensure that the charity is sustainable, so that we can continue to deliver services to some of the most vulnerable people in our communities”. 

In recent weeks Unite has accused the charity of a “pitiful” offer of a 2.25 per cent rise for its staff.

St Mungo’s says it could not meet Unite’s demands and remain “financially viable as an organisation”.

The dispute relates to pay for the last financial year, 2021/22.

The charity says it has already applied a rise of 1.75 per cent to salaries in that year, but that Unite has asked for a backdated and consolidated rise of 10 per cent.

The charity also claims that meeting the request for the last and current financial year would cost a total of £9.7m. 

It adds that its reserves have already been run down significantly over the last 12 months, in part by additional payments already made to staff.