UNION leaders will draw up new strike dates today, after yesterday’s walkout by up to one million council workers over pensions. Schools, libraries and transport throughout Britain were badly affected.

Ministers were told that the unions were digging in for a long dispute and that the Government would face a “massive backlash” over the next few weeks for pressing ahead with pension reforms. A further 24-hour walkout is possible for May 3.

Action was mixed yesterday, but some councils were said to have shut down and Unison claimed that 17,500 schools had to close, in the biggest nationwide action since the 1926 General Strike.

Refuse collection, funerals, street cleaning and transport services were cancelled, or scaled down, as hundreds of thousands of staff demanded the same rights as other public sector workers. Picket lines were mounted outside council offices, police stations, universities, day centres, libraries, museums, schools and town halls across Britain.

Services in the North East and North West were the hardest hit, although some councils in the South East and the East also had to cope with skeleton staff. Bus and rail services were at a standstill in Northern Ireland, while the closure of the Mersey tunnels and ferries in Liverpool and the Metro on Tyneside paralysed transport in the area. Multistorey car parks did not open in Newcastle and traffic wardens joined the strike. Other places reporting closed schools included Cardiff, Conwy, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Merthyr Tydfil, Leeds, Swansea, Neath, Port Talbot, Liverpool and Birmingham.

Employers and unions differed over the numbers but it appears that between 500,000 and 1 million workers out of a workforce of about 2 million backed the strike.

John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, decided to press ahead with moves to scrap the 85-year rule, which allows local government workers to retire at 60 on full pension if their age plus their service adds up to 85. Once Mr Prescott’s legislation has been passed, all workers will be expected to work until 65 to get their full pension rights. Mr Prescott announced that he would lay regulations this week to abolish the rule, though he signalled that some of the savings could be channelled back into better benefits for staff.

Today, leaders of the unions’ industrial action committee will draw up new strike dates in the run up to the local elections on May 4. One date already pencilled in is May 3, which could cause chaos for elections officers processing postal votes.

Ministers and local employment representatives will also meet unions in talks today to try to ward off further action.

Dave Prentis, the General-Secretary of Unison, said that council workers had a burning resentment against the Local Government Association (LGA), as well as the Government, over the pension scheme. “They are understandably angry at being treated like second-class citizens, ignored by this Government,” Mr Prentis said.

The LGA said that workers in the Liverpool area, the North East, parts of Inner London and Nottingham had shown strong support for industrial action, while the rest of the country’s council services had faced limited disruption. Sir Sandy Bruce Lockhart, the LGA chairman, said: “Now it is time for us to get back around the table and work together to come up with reforms of the pension scheme which are fair to council workers and council taxpayers alike.”

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