Refuse collectors, home helps and social workers are threatening “sustained strikes” this summer as unions prepare for a wave of industrial action over below-inflation pay deals.

Unison, Britain’s biggest public sector union, is to ballot nearly 900,000 members in local government for strikes lasting several days as unions sense that the 10p tax U-turn has left Gordon Brown vulnerable.

Dinner ladies, parking wardens, librarians, lollipop ladies and town hall office staff will be asked to back the walkouts after rejecting a 2.45 per cent pay increase, The Times has learnt. Civil servants and teachers are likely to follow suit.

The move follows the Bank of England’s forecast that inflation will rise to 3.7 per cent later this year.

It comes as unions increase the pressure on the Government to back down from public pay restraint policies after it announced it would borrow £2.7 billion to solve the 10p tax crisis. Last year Gordon Brown set a 2 per cent pay limit on public sector pay rises and teachers, council workers and civil servants have all been offered increases at or just above this.

“There is real anger among public service workers facing pay settlements that do not keep up with the cost of living,” Brendan Barber, TUC General Secretary, said. “That has already resulted in industrial action in some sectors, and there will inevitably be more in the future. But whatever the eventual extent of strike action, the Government will pay a price unless they change course and persuade public sector workers that they are really on their side.”

Next week the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), the Civil Service union, is expected to plan for a strike ballot across the whole of the civil service over pay. At its annual conference, the union is also likely to call for coordinated strike action with other public sector unions to maximise the impact.

Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, said: “The Government has demonstrated that it can listen and that it can act. Now it really needs to listen to its own workers and it can’t continue with draconian pay policies in the public sector. It needs to make changes on pay.”

The National Union of Teachers, which staged a joint walkout with civil servants last month for the first time in 22 years, is expected to take further action. Its executive is to meet next week to decide whether to recommend further strikes, but in March the membership gave its leaders a mandate for a “rolling and escalating programme of industrial action including strike action”. Teachers have been offered a 2.45 per cent pay rise this year, followed by 2.3 per cent in 2009 and 2010.

If Unison takes action in local government, workers could strike for two days in early July and then follow with more action of two days or more. It is possible the union could decide to go for a knockout blow of several days. Such a move would be unprecedented in recent industrial relations. In recent years, unions have tended to stage one-day strikes rather than take prolonged action.

Unison members working for Ofsted, the education inspectorate, are striking today in another dispute over pay. The 1,000 workers inspect nurseries, boarding schools and children’s homes. A spokeswoman for Unison said they were a barometer of the wider unrest in the public services. Unison negotiators for 30,000 support staff in further education have also rejected a 2.5 per cent pay offer.

Health workers in Unison and other unions are also being balloted on a three-year pay offer of 7.99 per cent. Unison is making no recommendation to its health members on which way to vote. But the GMB is recommending rejection. But town hall and health employers gave warning that they had made their final offer and would not be able to fund higher pay deals.

The Local Government Employers said that councils were already struggling with a tight grant settlement and that any higher pay increases would lead to council tax rises and job cuts.

“The employers have submitted their final pay to the unions. Any further increases in this offer could lead to higher council tax bills, job losses or cuts in services,” a spokesman said.

The NHS employers are now waiting the response from unions and other health bodies on their three-year deal. But Gill Bellord, director of pay and pensions, said that NHS trusts had planned for the staged award and would have to cut health services or make staff redundant if the offer was improved.

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