TOWN hall staff have started down the road to industrial action over the council's multi-million pound budget cuts.

Hundreds of workers packed into the Elizabethan Suite in Bury on Monday, February 3, night and voted unanimously to oppose planned cuts in pay and conditions or any compulsory redundancies.

Members of Unison demanded that the threats are withdrawn. If not, they will hold a special meeting to support a ballot on industrial action.

Staff have been asked to consider working for several days without pay, or even giving up this year's pay award, to help the council save money.

Sue Duggan, assistant branch secretary of Unison, said members had been promised support from the union's national leaders.

Regional officers will now be called in for crisis negotiations with council bosses.

"We are open to discussion with the council, but we are firmly saying that we will not pay for services with our terms and conditions," she said.

Phil Stansfield, branch secretary, said Unison and other local authority unions had agreed to work together.

"Everybody is aware of the emotional pull of education," he said, "but we were determined not to get embroiled in a divisive debate on whose cuts were worse than whose.

"It is therefore pleasing to note that the two main teaching unions, the NUT and NAS/UWT, were opposing all cuts despite the emotional demands and pressures of redundancy they face."

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