UNIONS which represent local government and school support workers in Wiltshire, have called off a one-day strike planned for Tuesday, in order to consult members on new proposals which could resolve their pay dispute.

The new proposals cover the period from April 1, 2014 to March 31, 2016 and the unions will now move forward together to consult their members The three unions which represent more than 1.5 million workers in local government and schools – UNISON, GMB and UNITE – decided last night to suspend strike action planned for October 14 and consult their members on new proposals put forward by the Local Government Association as the best achievable by negotiation.

All three unions say they want to strengthen the collective bargaining machinery covering local government and schools and move quickly to jointly tackle important issues facing their members with the Local Government Association. They say members covered by the National Joint Council for Local Government have the lowest pay in the public sector and have suffered significant attacks on their conditions of work in recent years.

Brian Strutton, GMB National Secretary for Public Services, said "It has proved extremely difficult to persuade the local government employers to agree new pay proposals for us to consult our members on. But now we have an agreed set of new proposals which we will consult on and while doing that GMB is suspending the strike planned for October 14. We will issue more details about the consultation shortly."