OUTRAGED local government workers are being urged to strike over plans to force them to work until 65 and cut their benefits.

The ballot began on Monday and will close on March 9. A 'yes' vote could trigger strike action at the end of March and into April - possibly during a General Election campaign. Union bosses are even threatening to join forces with other disgruntled unions representing teachers, nurses and firefighters to organise nationwide strikes, the like of which has not been seen since the 1970s.

Unison and the GMB - Britain's General Union - have called the ballot of members, saying workers are furious the Government is pushing through changes to public sector pensions from April which would see the retirement age for men and women raised from 60 to 65 and change early retirement packages.

Cheshire County Council workers from Phoenix House gathered outside Vale Royal Borough Council's Wyvern House base on Friday to register their protest against the cuts.

GMB branch secretary Colin Priest said: 'Talks have broken down with (Deputy Prime Minister) John Prescott and there's now the option of strikes. That could even include other unions such as school teachers or nurses who are all disgruntled at the moment.

'The main issue for us is that after 30 or 40 years of loyal service and paying into a pension scheme, people have been told the rules are changing. It will make it nearly impossible for anyone to take early retirement and people will have to work an extra five years, the reason being that people are living longer than they used to.

'If you take someone with 35 years of experience, they have already planned their retirement and now the goalposts have been moved, and when you think the average pension is no more than £4,000 it's disgraceful the way the Government is treating us.'

Mr Priest was speaking after a day of protests organised by GMB and Unison to complain at the threat to change pension packages. About 20 workers from Cheshire County Council's Phoenix House gathered at Wyvern House to register their protests at Mr Prescott's refusal to back down over the plans.

The decision to protest outside the offices of Vale Royal Borough Council rather than Phoenix House angered borough council bosses, but union chiefs say Vale Royal staff will be just as affected by the changes.

Unison branch secretary Michael Tindale said he was asking people to write to their local MPs.