WORKERS at a charity in Birmingham will be taking strike action over management issues and its refusal to recognise their trade union, the United Voices of the World (UVW) said today.

UVW members at Asylum Support and Immigration Resource Team (ASIRT) are calling for the charity to stop the planned dissolution and keep providing vital services to migrant and refugee communities in the city.

ASIRT provides free legal advice to people subject to immigration control in Birmingham and the West Midlands.

The workers are also demanding that the management of ASIRT grant them a voice at work that will allow them to collectively bargain for better working conditions and pay.

Union member and ASIRT immigration caseworker Eve Phillips said: “Undocumented people across the West Midlands, who use and need this legal support service, have been entirely disregarded by trustees.

“The trustees have consistently refused transparency or to meaningfully consult with workers in any ways that could prevent the charity’s closure.

“For example, by hearing our ideas about how the responsibilities of the director, a role to which they’ve failed to recruit, could be met in other ways, utilising the experience and expertise of the workers.

“We are striking in solidarity with the people we work with and advocate on behalf of every day.”

ASIRT workers will be on strike on December 21.

A statement from the charity said: “[Dissolution] has been an extremely difficult decision and has only been taken after trustees have exhausted all possibilities of ensuring safe, long-term sustainability for the charity.”

The trustees announced last month that they will formally wind up the charity citing “a precarious financial outlook” and an inability to appoint a CEO.