York council staff and management were in a stand-off today after an offer over pay and conditions was overwhelmingly thrown out by union members.

The threat of strikes in key council services has not been ruled out Unison employees demand a better deal from council bosses.

But industrial action may be averted because the council is to hand the matter to independent arbitrators.

The two sides are at loggerheads following an 82 per cent "no" result in a ballot among Unison members on whether to accept controversial management proposals.

The vote came despite Chief Executive David Clark sending individual letters to each employee urging them to accept the deal.

Peter Household, of Unison, said: "We suggest the management now withdraw these outrageous proposals."

The row is over the nationally-agreed Single Status Agreement, which aims to smooth out differences between the conditions of white and blue collar workers.

It gives workers the right to a 37-hour week, but the City of York Council claims this will push up the wages bill by an estimated £750,000, a sum it says should not be passed on to the taxpayer.

Union officials have been battling to avoid a cocktail of unpalatable measures - such as reducing allowances for working overtime - being implemented to meet this cost.

Mr Household said: "I'm very pleased indeed by the ballot result. I think the management were banking on staff who were not directly affected voting it through, but they didn't count on the solidarity of our members."

He said the management's campaign for a "yes" vote had backfired because it contained implied threats over job losses.

He said: "It was an own-goal. The chief executive sent all our members a letter at home which said there would have to be service cuts or job losses unless a package of measures was in place. This went down like a lead balloon and persuaded a lot of our members who were unsure which way to vote to vote 'no'.

"They also hired a public relations company to produce glossy posters and leaflets. The reaction to this was that people thought, 'Well, if they can afford that, they can afford to pay us properly'."

A spokesman for City of York Council said: "We are very disappointed that our proposals have been rejected by Unison members.

"We had wanted to reach a settlement with all staff now before the costs of introducing the Single Status Agreement start to mount up.

"To achieve this, we had moved considerably, following consultation with staff, from our original position of introducing the Single Status Agreement at zero cost to the taxpayer to a point where we were prepared to accept £238,000 per annum of additional costs."

He said most Unison members would have benefited from the "fair and reasonable" offer and pointed out that the GMB union, which has a much smaller membership at the council than Unison, had accepted the offer.

The council will now be seeking independent conciliation between management and Unison, a process that is likely to take some time.

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