(Bloomberg) -- Workers employed by the City of London Corporation are planning to strike after the Unite union said they’d been offered a “derisory” 3% pay rise.
Unite said it had more than 250 members at the Corporation — the local authority for the financial district — including some police, security staff and office workers. It has begun balloting for industrial action and said strikes could be held by the end of next month.
“The City of London Corporation is grossly wealthy and there is no justification whatsoever for its attempt to force a massive real terms pay cut on its workers,” said Sharon Graham, general secretary of Unite.
Read More: Worker Unrest Grows as Unions Get a Taste for Mass Strikes
Industrial action in the UK is reaching levels not seen in 30 years as workers in the rail network, health service, Royal Mail, civil service and elsewhere in the public sector protest against pay offers below inflation, which is more than 10%.
“Providing the inflation-matching pay increase demanded by the unions would result in significant cuts to services, including making a considerable number of redundancies,” a City of London Corporation spokesperson said.
The Corporation said that all full-time employees would receive a raise of at least £2,300 ($2,777).
Unite said that some of its members in the Square Mile have had to resort to food banks and one employee even started sleeping in their car.
(Updates with response from City of London in fifth and sixth paragraphs.)
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