Housing repair workers employed by Haringey Council will strike this winter in a dispute over pay.
Unite said 130 workers have rejected the national pay offer – a flat increase of £1,925, which the union said was below the rate of inflation and amounted to a real-terms pay cut.
According to Unite, Haringey has also refused to increase the London weighting for 2022 and 2023 and to increase annual leave for housing repair workers in line with other council workers.
Following two recent days of industrial action, the workforce will strike for six days in November and seven in December.
Unite regional officer Simon McCartney said: ‘The strike action will inevitably cause major disruption.
‘Haringey is failing to value its workers and properly reward them for their hard work. It’s high time the council listened to its workforce and listened to the director of housing.’
Housing director Jahedur Rahman reportedly said neighbouring boroughs were ‘offering a higher salary and poaching our staff’ at a housing, planning and development scrutiny panel last month.
Haringey’s cabinet member for housing services, private renters and planning, Sarah Williams, said: ‘This strike relates to a national pay dispute affecting several councils across the country.
‘This is a process in which we as a council have no direct role and do not wish to undermine.'
Cllr Williams said the strikes coincided with a 'major investment and improvement programme aiming to deliver a high-quality housing repairs service' and so the council was doing all it could to reduce the impact on residents.
The industrial action follows a spate of criticism of Haringey’s housing services this year.
In March, the Regulator of Social Housing found Haringey had breached health and safety requirements by failing to take action over fire risks and not having up-to-date electrical safety reports for thousands of homes.
The same month, the Housing Ombudsman revealed that the London borough had received four complaint handling failure orders in the previous quarter, the most received by any landlord.
Between April and June, Haringey received – and did not comply with – two further complaint handling failure orders from the ombudsman.
In July, the regulator described a ‘culture of apathy’ in a special report into the authority, which detailed 18 cases of severe maladministration over the previous six months.
