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.
"Our
door remains firmly open, but the employers must be in no doubt that something
significant has to come to prevent this action."