AN ELITE private club in Mayfair run by a Boris Johnson donor and defender of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet is being accused of suspending workers who demanded the London living wage.

The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB) says eight of its members are being victimised after organising for better pay at Loulou’s, an exclusive venue on 5 Hertford Street.

PLEASE SIGN & SHARE Migrant workers at Brexiteer millionaire Robin Birley's 5 Hertford Street club have been suspended on trumped up charges. #5HeartlessStreet

Their crime? Demanding a living wage & sick pay.
Sign & help end this injustice https://t.co/ZRIKps2Mgt pic.twitter.com/nZGN8NF1Qa

— IWGB (@IWGBunion) August 19, 2019

The club is owned by Robin Birley, who donated £20,000 to Mr Johnson’s prime ministerial bid in June.

Mr Birley has previously given more than a quarter of a million pounds to Ukip when it was run by Nigel Farage.

When Pinochet was arrested for human rights violations in London in 1998 Mr Birley told the Telegraph his detention was “an abuse of hospitality to ambush an old man when he has come to this country year after year. He has done an immense amount for Chile.” 

Mr Birley reportedly co-funded a pro-Pinochet pamphlet while the dictator was on bail.

IWGB president Henry Chango Lopez said: “The 5 Hertford Street kitchen porters had a very simple and fair demand: to not be treated like the dirty dishes they clean. 

“Management’s response has been to intimidate workers with suspensions on absurd grounds.

“If Robin Birley can hand over £250,000 to racists like Ukip and Boris Johnson, he can pay his workers a living wage. 

“We demand an end to all victimisation and that these workers be employed on fair terms and conditions.”

Mr Lopez claims that as many as eight kitchen porters have been suspended “on trumped-up charges” after launching a campaign for the London living wage of £10.55 per hour.

The union escalated its campaign yesterday by launching a petition that also calls for workers to be given occupational sick pay and not have their jobs outsourced to an agency, ActClean.

So far their campaign has secured a meagre 35 pence hourly pay rise up from £8.65 per hour, at a club where annual membership is believed to cost £1,800.

The union is also concerned that the kitchen porters are allegedly denied occupational sick pay, “so they get no money at all the first three days they are off work with an illness and then are only paid £94.25 per week.”

“This means many of them are forced to work while they are ill, just to be able to pay their rent and keep the light on,” the IWGB added.

5 Hertford Street and ActClean had not responded to comment at the time of going to press.