Warning over 'summer of discontent'

Unison and Unite said more than half a million local authority workers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland took part in a second day of industrial action, closing thousands of schools, libraries, leisure centres and museums and hitting refuse collections and street cleaning, although the employers said far fewer were on strike.

Further industrial action has not been ruled out in the bitter row over a below-inflation pay offer of 2.45% which unions complained failed to keep pace with rising food, fuel and housing costs.

The Conservatives said official figures showed that in the first 11 months of Gordon Brown's premiership there were almost three times as many days lost to strike action as there were in the same period in the previous year, under Tony Blair, and warned of a "long summer of discontent".

Workers in the Home Office, including immigration officers, will stage a one day strike on Friday, while staff in the Land Registry will walkout for two hours, also over pay. Coastguards will launch a 48-hour strike on Friday, the latest in a series of walkouts in protest at a below inflation pay rise.

The Public and Commercial Services union has launched a week of action over pay by tens of thousands of civil servants in a backlash against the Government's public sector wage policy.

The union warned that Friday's action will lead to delays at immigration controls and the cancellation of asylum interviews, while the coastguards' stoppage could close around half of the UK's 19 coastguard rescue control centres.

NHS workers will stage a series of protests across the country on Friday against a "derisory" three-year pay offer worth around 8%, which could lead to industrial action.

Members of Unite will join demonstrations in areas including London, Brighton, Norwich, Liverpool, Manchester, Nuneaton, Leeds, Poole, Belfast and Nottingham.

Local authority employers said support for the strike was falling.