COUNCIL workers will stage their first national strike since the 1979 winter of discontent after voting to take action over pay.
Schools, leisure centres, housing and environmental services across Greenwich will be hit by the 24-hour stoppage which has been scheduled for July 17.
Members of three unions, which represent workers ranging from school caretakers to through to social workers, voted in favour of industrial action.
The strikes are a protest against the three per cent pay increase they have been offered.
Unison, the biggest union, said its members voted by 56 per cent in favour, while members of the Transport and General Workers' Union and the General Municipal Boilermakers both voted by 66 per cent in favour.
The unions are seeking a six per cent, or £1,750 pay rise.
This would bring the minimum wage for somebody working in local government to £11,017 a year.
Heather Wakefield, national officer of Unison, said: "Our members have voted for industrial action because they are sick of being treated as the poor relations of the public sector."
July 9, 2002 12:00
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