UNIONS have a £20m war chest to bankroll weeks of more strikes in Southampton, the Daily Echo can reveal.

Hundreds of council workers will walk out on strike on Monday on what unions have dubbed “Armageddon Day”.

Hopes of last-ditch talks to end the seven-week dispute over forced pay cuts collapsed this week when a secretly planned meeting between the unions and the city council through mediation service ACAS was scrapped. The council claimed that the meeting was never confirmed.

The industrial action by up to 2,400 council staff has been costing the unions hundreds of thousands of pounds in strike pay but Unison branch secretary Mike Tucker said he was confident that local and national coffers would not run dry.

“Money won’t be a barrier to continuing the dispute,” he said.

A national Unison spokeswoman confirmed: “We’ve set up a fighting fund of £20m nationally. The hardship fund is available for those that need it.”

Unison general secretary Dave Prentis told the Daily Echo: “Southampton’s council staff are loyal public sector workers helping to keep vital services in their local community running through difficult times. And by way of thanks the council wants to sack them and re-employ them on worse pay.

“This dispute sends an important message to Southampton council bosses, and to other employers thinking of doing the same, that workers will not take this treatment lying down.”

Council leader Cllr Royston Smith said it was clear that the dispute was now being driven by a national agenda to warn off other councils from bringing in similar pay cuts.

He insisted that the pay cuts would protect 400 jobs and was last night backed by local government minister Bob Neill who said that the Tory-run council was “doing the right thing”.

“Other councils, like Labourcontrolled Manchester, have gone down the route of shedding thousands of jobs and slashing services in an effort to score political points.

“This approach does no favours whatsoever for the residents they serve,” he said.

The minister added that while proper negotiation, compromise on both sides and common ground should always be sought, strikes seem to have “sadly been the first resort” in Southampton.

Earlier this week Cllr Smith claimed that the council faced an even bigger budget black hole than feared after more staff than anticipated had volunteered for costly redundancies and inflation had pushed up costs. Some 250 jobs are already being cut this year, including one in five senior managers.

Cllr Smith said that the council needed to save at least £75m over the next four years – £10m more than forecast earlier this year.

Council staff have been threatened with dismissal if they don’t sign up to new contracts coming in on Monday cutting pay and conditions.

The council said that 84 per cent, or 3,880, had done so.

Next week’s strikes will be the largest yet, involving more than 600 workers.

Carpenters, bricklayers, plumbers, electricians and gas fitters will join bin men, street cleaners and port health workers in walkouts from Monday.

The council made a final offer to the unions as two-anda- half days of ACAS talks collapsed in stalemate two weeks ago. But the offer, to remove those earning under £22,000 from pay cuts of between two and 5.5 per cent, was this week rejected by a 500-strong meeting of union members.

The council said that a £250 bonus being paid to staff earning under £21,000 would mean that 95 per cent of bin men would get a pay rise.

But unions said that staff would lose annual pay rises through a two-year freeze, and mileage rates would be slashed.

Cllr Smith said that the offer remained on the table and he would be happy to meet unions to talk about implementing it.