Hundreds of Oxfam shop and office workers have begun 17 days of strikes over Christmas in a dispute over pay.
It is the first time in the charity’s 81-year history there has been strike action by its workers and follows the rejection by Unite members of a pay offer in November.
Unite said workers, squeezed by cost-of-living pressures, deserve more of the charity’s funds. About 500 workers at about 200 shops are likely to take part in the industrial action, said Unite.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Oxfam is an extremely wealthy organisation and can afford to put forward an acceptable offer” without hitting its charity work.
“Oxfam wants to end poverty and says it is on the side of unions. Yet its own workers report having to use foodbanks,” she said.
The union also accused Oxfam of “undermining the strike” by asking volunteers to work.
Oxfam said its reserves had fallen and it needed to hold back funds in readiness for financial shocks
But Unite claimed average wages at Oxfam had fallen by more than a fifth, in real terms, since 2018, while Oxfam’s reserves had grown to £44.6m in 2022.
In November, Unite members rejected a pay offer of £1,750 or a 6% rise, and a one-off payment of £1,000 for the lowest earners. This led to last-ditch discussions to try to avoid a strike but on Thursday the union said the action would go ahead.
Oxfam said the charity “chose to bring forward paying the latest real Living Wage increases, and prioritised lower paid colleagues in this year’s award”.
Oxfam has committed to adhere to the 2023-24 real Living Wage rates from the date they are announced. The real Living Wage rate outside London rose to £12 per hour and inside London to £13.15 per hour on 24 October. This means that the lowest-paid Oxfam workers receiving the real Living Wage should receive a 10% pay rise.
Unite has claimed that Oxfam’s current offer means that some workers will not receive the new real Living Wage, but in a statement the charity said: “We are proud to be a Real Living Wage employer and are doing what we can to address colleagues’ concerns within the limits of the resources we have available.”
According to jobs website Indeed the current hourly rate for Oxfam shopworkers and fundraisers varies between £8.84 and £11.27.
Oxfam has a collective bargaining agreement with two unions: Unite and the Independent Oxfam Union (IOU). It said it had managed to reach an agreement with IOU, but not Unite.
It added that its reserves have fallen since 2022, and were “currently at the lower end of what is necessary to allow Oxfam to weather future financial shocks”. The charity said it expected this situation to continue for the next few years.
Oxfam added that it was “normal practice for volunteers to keep shops open in the absence of managers, where this is practical,” as it allowed fundraising to continue.
Industrial action will take place on 8-9, 14-17, 20-24 and 26-31 December and “some” office workers would also walk out, in addition to shopworkers.
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