UK unions to fuel autumn of discontent

Manchester, UK: The United Kingdom's Trades Union Congress, the national trade union centre, representing the vast majority of organized workers in the country will opt for an all-out assault on the government's spending cuts programme when they gather here for their annual meeting today. They will ratify proposals to launch joint industrial action, protest days and nation-wide demonstrations against the Government's planned austerity measures.

According to Brendan Barber, TUC general secretary, the Tory-Lib Dem coalition will be held to account for deserting the poor and damaging public services in its bid to reduce public deficit.

TUC will move against government's policies sometime next month, on the eve of chancellor George Osborne's comprehensive spending review, and its industrial action programme will begin to peak in spring 2011 even as Britain begins to feel the impact of the cuts.

More militant left-wing unions may press for more dramatic action, seeking strikes this year and issuing calls for campaigns of civil disobedience against the cuts. The Manchester meet will bring to the fore divisions over tactics within the TUC.

Even as unions begin to flex their muscle, government ministers insist they will protect vital public services even as they go about trying to reduce the £155bn deficit.

The TUC's 142nd congress will be the first under a non-Labour government since 1996.