Scientific institute paying poverty wages to hundreds while CEO makes over £400k
Hundreds of staff at the world-renowned Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) in London will take strike action following an unacceptable pay offer.
Unite members based at the ICR in Sutton and in Chelsea are furious over the lack of an improved pay offer when the organisation has hundreds of millions in cash reserves and pays its CEO over £400,000 per year.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: "The ICR might be a world-leading scientific centre of excellence, but when it comes to how it treats its staff it is at the bottom of the pile.
 
"It is rolling in money and pays its CEO a fortune yet sees fit to shortchange the very staff that ensure the vital work of the ICR can continue.”
Workers who work across Scientific Research, Laboratory Support, and Site Management, have been offered just a 3.75 per cent pay increase amid a cost-of-living crisis, along with the refusal to implement a increment-based pay policy. Many currently earn barely over the London Living Wage of just £14.80 per hour. The workers have experienced a series of below inflation pay rises over recent years, resulting in severe cuts in their living standards.
The ICR insists it cannot afford to pay workers more yet has a "development fund" of over £100 million and has costed a 16 per cent pay restoration pay rise for all staff at just £9 million.
For the first time in their history staff will now head to the picket line in industrial action that will see the Institute's work severely affected and many laboratories and facilities shuttered. Staff will walk out on 3 and 4, 9, 10, 11, and 15, 16, 17, and 18 June.
Unite regional officer Will Searby added: "It is unacceptable to pay vital and skilled staff the bare minimum while sitting on top of such significant reserves and paying their senior staff such high salaries. The ICR can easily afford to pay our members a decent wage but is actively choosing not to.
 
"Unite will be giving workers at the ICR our full support as they strike for the first time this spring and they will be making their anger seen on the picket line."