Public service workers' strike signals summer of discontent for Labour

Unison is planning a two-day strike next month with the threat of escalating industrial action.

Refuse collectors, teaching assistants, dinner ladies, social workers, housing benefit staff, cleaners and town hall employees including architects, backed industrial action in a row over a 2.45 per cent below-inflation pay rise.

Unison members voted by 55 per cent to walk out in a blow to Gordon Brown's premiership. Almost 600,000 workers were balloted.

Conservative leader David Cameron warned the Government it was going to have to be "extremely tough" on unions which he claimed had a " stranglehold" on Labour because the party was "so reliant" on them for funding.

Nearly 300,000 civil servants are also to be balloted by the PCS union in a pay dispute, with the threat of strikes at airports, ports, benefit and tax of fices, courts, and museums.

Members of the GMB union who work in the health service have rejected a pay deal and Network Rail staff have walked out this month in a dispute over pay and conditions.

Teachers have also recently taken strike action and probation officers, Ofsted inspectors, meat and hygiene inspectors and further education staff are in dispute over pay.

Shadow communities secretary Eric Pickles said: "I am very concerned at the rubbish piling up uncollected in the summer months, especially in areas where the Government has already bullied councils into axing weekly collections."

Despite the small majority in favour of walking out, Dave Prentis, Unison's general secretary, warned of "sustained and escalating" action.

He said: "Our members are fed up and angry that they are expected to accept pay cut after pay cut while bread and butter prices go through the roof. Most of them are low-paid workers who are hit hardest by food and fuel price hikes and they see the unfairness of boardroom bonanzas and big City bonuses."

Unison negotiators will decide tomorrow what action to recommend to the national strike committee this week.

Union chiefs were claiming a six per cent pay rise or 50p an hour, whichever was greater.

They rejected Chancellor Alistair Darling's plea for pay restraint from the "boardroom to the shop floor" to avoid a spiral of inflation hitting Britain's economy.

His appeal also appeared to be undermined by a series of recent inflationbusting pay awards. Tanker drivers supplying Shell petrol stations last week clinched a 14 per cent rise in a two-year deal after going on strike.

Brian Baldwin, representing council chiefs involved in the negotiations, said the 2.45 per cent offer was final.

"If the pay settlement is set any higher, councils will be forced into making unpalatable choices between cutting frontline services and laying off staff," he said.

"Neither unions nor employers would want either of these options."