Thousands of Kirklees Council staff to strike in new year

Members were balloted throughout this month, with 53 percent of members favouring strike action across five consecutive days. Kirklees Council could see up to 8,000 staff walk out in the middle of one of the country’s harshest winters for decades.

The union is concerned over the council’s plans to make 698 redundancies over three years and their desire to take employees’ sickness records into account when interviewing staff for jobs.

Members met again in Huddersfield on Wednesday to hammer out the detail for the first strike in nearly four years.

Unison Branch Secretary Paul Holmes said: “This is a magnificent result given the current economic climate and our members are really frightened about their futures.

“I think that the public realise that there’s a battle going on to save both jobs and frontline public services.

“This is absolutely justified because we don’t want to lose either jobs or services.”

The latest development mean that Kirklees Council has become the first local authority in the country to face a five-day strike, since the austerity measures were announced by the government earlier this year.

Kirklees Council were unable to comment on the result of the strike ballot.