THE number of workers set to take part in the July 10 walkout swelled to two million yesterday as Unite members facing a fifth straight pay cut voted to strike. 

Unite, which represents 70,000 local government workers, became the fourth union to throw its weight behind the action.

Sixty-eight per cent of members voted Yes for a strike in response to the latest “insulting” 1 per cent pay offer made by council bosses.

Unite national officer for local government Fiona Farmer said the two-to-one result reflects “the depth of feeling” among staff. 

“Poverty pay is widespread across local councils. Household bills continue to soar, but our members’ buying power is constantly being eroded,” she said. 

Ms Farmer said that around 400,000 council workers paid below £15,000-a-year for delivering vital local services were now “choosing between heating and eating.”

Knowsley Council social care worker Betty Wilkinson said it was her lowest-paid colleagues doing the “really tough jobs.”

She told the Star: “Cleaning, kitchen and refuse staff are all on low pay. 

“They do really important jobs — the whole operation would grind to a halt without them.” 

The strike vote was cheered by a thousand Unite members as it was announced by general secretary Len McCluskey at the union’s conference in Liverpool.

The National Union of Teachers, Unison and the GMB have all already named the date to demand an end to poverty pay. 

Con-Dem ministers who imposed the public-sector pay freeze also face a rebellion by their own civil servants after PCS union members voted by 73 per cent for strike action. 

The union’s executive will confirm whether it will join the July 10 walkout at a meeting this morning.

It means up to two million workers will join picket lines in what Unison leader Dave Prentis predicted could be second biggest strike ever witnessed in Britain. 

Tens of thousands are expected to join a traffic-stopping march through London on July 10 that will end in a huge rally at Trafalgar Square. 

And Sefton Council clerk and Unite rep Sharon Payne said her members were ready to take even more action. 

“As much as it’s going to kill them to lose a day’s pay, a lot of them want to be out as long as it takes because they’ve had enough of how local authority workers are treated.”

People’s Assembly national secretary Sam Fairbairn said momentum behind the July 10 strike and the TUC’s October 18 demonstration will “maximise resistance” to cuts in the run-up to the general election. 

He said: “Getting these things right will create a political crisis for this government and can hold Labour to account over its commitment to austerity.”

And midwives in England said they were prepared to take industrial action over pay.

The Royal College of Midwives said that 94 per cent of midwives and maternity support workers taking part in a consultation said they would consider strike action.