Coalition faces huge strike as biggest unions ballot council workers

Unison leader Dave Prentis said the action could be greater than the 1926 common strike if employees voted for it. Photograph: Paul Faith/PA Wire/Press Association Pictures

The government is this week dealing with up to the prospect of the greatest strike because the coalition came to workplace amid developing anger over spend restraint in the public sector.

The UK’s most significant trade unions are balloting hundreds of 1000′s of council employees in England and Wales in protest at an provide worth one% for most staff.

Unison will announce the outcome of its ballot on Monday, followed by GMB and Unite above the subsequent week.

The Public and Business Companies union is also balloting its members for a strike in a lengthy-running dispute above cuts in the civil support, with the result due by the end of the month.

If workers vote yes, there will be a 1-day strike on ten July, which the Unison leader, Dave Prentis, has predicted could be greater than the 1926 basic strike.

Members of the National Union of Teachers will also take industrial action on 10 July, while firefighters in England and Wales have staged a series of walkouts in excess of pensions in the previous yr and have not ruled out even more stoppages.

Midwives in England could also quickly be balloted for industrial action in protest at the government’s choice not to accept a advisable 1% across-the-board pay rise for NHS employees.

Thousands of midwives and maternity support staff are getting consulted on whether they want a formal ballot for action.

Jon Skewes of the Royal School of Midwives explained: “Midwives are really angry that the government said to them they’d get a 1% pay out rise but now only employees at the top of their pay out scales will get that rise, and it truly is not consolidated into their pay out.

“Jeremy Hunt has picked out wellness workers for harsher treatment method on spend than anybody else in the public sector.

“This is the time for midwives to get a stand since the government is intent on assaulting their shell out and conditions.”

Other well being unions are warning of ballots for industrial action, which could lead to a second wave of public-sector strikes in the autumn.

At the opening of the annual conference of the transport union RMT in Bristol, the acting standard secretary, Mick Income, reinforced calls for co-ordinated action towards cuts and the threat to jobs and operating problems.

He said: “This is the very first RMT AGM given that the death of our standard secretary, Bob Crow, but the fighting, militant organisation that was constructed underneath Bob’s leadership remains in area, as we have proven in a wave of latest disputes from London Underground to Heathrow Express and in ongoing campaigns to defend our members’ jobs, spend and functioning circumstances.

“RMT has lengthy argued for a policy of co-ordinated and generalised strike action that unites every single group of staff threatened with the cosh of austerity and it is encouraging to see that that position is gaining traction the length and breadth of the trade union motion.”

Coalition faces huge strike as biggest unions ballot council workers