UNDERPAID workers at the St Mungo’s homeless charity will extend their month-long strike indefinitely thanks to a “do-nothing” approach from bosses to negotiations, their union Unite warned today.

The “momentous decision has been provoked by the ongoing indifference of management and trustees who callously refuse to acknowledge the struggle front-line workers face to pay the bills,” it charged.

After tax and deductions, the staff take home less than £20,000 a year. Many now fear for their futures, the union said, condemning the growing corporatisation of the charity sector.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “St Mungo’s workers are taking indefinite strike action because management and the trustees are displaying astonishing callousness. 

“This attitude is corporate Britain meets the charity sector. The workers know St Mungo’s can afford to improve front-line workers’ pay: that’s why the blame for this indefinite strike lies with management. 

“I want to make it absolutely clear that the workers have Unite’s ongoing support.”

The union’s current four-week strike ends on Monday, with indefinite strikes beginning the next day.

A majority of the more than 500 workers it balloted in London, Brighton, Bournemouth and elsewhere in southern England backed industrial action after the charity, which according to Unite holds more than £16 million in cash reserves, stubbornly refused to improve on its pitiful below-inflation 2.25 per cent wage offer.

The charity’s chief executive Emma Haddad previously claimed that the pay deal would have seen those on the lowest salaries pocket a 10 per cent wage boost. She has called the four-week strike unprecedented and disproportionate.