OUTSOURCED security guards at the Natural History and Science museums have overwhelmingly voted to strike, their union announced today. 

The United Voices of the World (UVW) members are demanding a proper pay rise, having only been offered £13.15 an hour, which they described as “too little, too late” after years of real-terms pay cuts.

The security guards had been earning £11.95 per hour until this month, only 51p above the minimum wage.

They are demanding £16 an hour, full sick pay from day one and an additional week of annual leave. 

Their contractor, Wilson James, rakes in more than £7 million in profit after tax and refuses to enter negotiations, UVW said. 

Security guard Sempijja Juma said the guards are standing and patrolling in the freezing cold for hours at a time. 

“Some of us have health issues we can’t talk about, but we persist,” he said.

“We’re going through all this pain but we don’t show it. Yet the museum looks at us as second-class citizens. Directly employed staff get frequent breaks but we don’t.” 

Online start “We do our best for the millions of people that come through the doors and all the high-profile events with politicians, billionaires, celebrities, and royalty that we look after. 

“We’ve tried sending letters, we tried to speak to Human Resource, but every time we got ignored. Online end

A Wilson James spokesperson said: “We are proud to offer competitive compensation to our employees and remain dedicated to fair and transparent negotiations.”