STRIKING security guards at a London hospital are taking their fight against outsourcing one step further in a “landmark” legal challenge that could affect more than three million workers.

The wholly black and minority-ethnic security team at St George’s University Hospital are launching the challenge on the grounds that outsourcing amounts to indirect race discrimination.

Their union, United Voices of the World (UVW), which is bringing the case, argues that the practice of outsourcing generates a two-tier, racially divided workforce.