Unison, the UK’s largest union, will ballot almost 800,000 local government workers in England, Scotland and Wales on action against changes to their pension scheme.
The vote will take place over the next few weeks – with the result known on 9 March – after the union’s strike committee authorised the ballot yesterday.
Dave Prentis, Unison general secretary, said: “We have told the Government that our members will not accept these changes to their pension scheme and that we will take action to fight them.
“The average pension for a local government worker is £3,800 a year and we feel that is too low.”
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Changes to local government pension scheme include increasing the retirement age from 60 to 65 and a move to a basic pay rather than final salary scheme.