Local
government staff will strike for the second time this year on 14 August over
the annual pay increase.
The
move follows a day of strike action this week in which trade unions claim
three-quarters of a million council workers walked out. A third one-day strike
in September is also being planned.
The
unions are demanding double the 3 per cent on offer from the employers.
Heather
Wakefield, local government secretary at Unison, said: "In the face of the
employers’ failure to re-open negotiations we are escalating our campaign of
industrial action.
"It
would be a disaster if the employers and the Government took off on their
summer holidays and left in their wake chaos on this scale.
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"Our
door remains firmly open, but the employers must be in no doubt that something
significant has to come to prevent this action."
