Hotel workers will mobilise in London tomorrow to expose the scandal of poverty pay in the capital’s multibillion-pound hospitality industry.

Staff are campaigning for the London living wage of £8.80 an hour and their 24 hours of campaigning action will take place on the eighth day of the eighth month of the year to help make their point.

Unite says that fair wages are affordable in London, comparing it to New York, where many of the same big name hotels charge less for rooms but pay workers doing the same jobs more than double the rate of their London counterparts.

“Chambermaids in New York earn the equivalent of £16 per hour, while in London, it is £6.31 — the national minimum wage,” said a Unite spokesman.

“Although recently voted the most expensive short-stay city in the world, and despite the Mayor of London’s promises in 2012 that he would take action to boost pay in the industry, not one hotel in London pays the living wage. 

“Most workers cleaning the city’s 135,000 rooms earn the minimum wage of £6.31 per hour even though the industry generates £5.7 billion per annum and makes profits of £10.5 million per day in London alone.”

Today workers are leafleting West End bars, restaurants and coffee shops.

Tomorrow from 12.30pm they will hold a protest outside the Crowne Plaza London in Bridge Street to leaflet hotel workers and tourists and stage a “poverty picnic” outside the Greater London Authority from 4pm with speakers from the authority and Unite.