VETERAN workers at homeless charity St Mungo’s Broadway defied the face-to-face taunts of their anti-union boss yesterday to mount pickets at hostels in a sixth strike day against a £5,000 pay cut.

At noon dozens of red Unite union flags encircled the doors of east London’s Hackney Town Hall — which once famously flew the red socialist banner from its flagpole — as strikers from across the capital joined forces to press council commissioners to take up their case.

A great cheer and the deafening sound of horns greeted news that officials had agreed to meet the Unite union before holding crisis talks with the charity’s bosses.