A UNION fighting job losses at the region’s biggest council may consider striking if redundancies are compulsory.

Labour-run Durham County Council is having to axe 1,600 posts and cut services to save £100m over four years.

The council has always tried to make job cuts through voluntary redundancy, but its leadership said it could not rule out compulsory job losses.

Howard Pink, from Unison, which has 6,500 members among the County Hall workforce of more than 10,000, said: “Our members at Durham County Council are extremely anxious and worried and want to work with the council to achieve a conclusion where the redundancies are voluntary and not compulsory.

“If our members are under threat of compulsory redundancy, we cannot exclude strike action.”

Mr Pink said the council had not been able to guarantee that there would be no compulsory redundancies and said he would be overjoyed if the authority could give such an undertaking.

He said going on strike would be a last resort, and said the scale of the coalition Government spending cuts was unacceptable.

Council leader Simon Henig revealed on Tuesday night that the council would have to seek redundancies and would be asking for people to consider voluntary redundancy or early retirement.

The council’s leaders said that they would do everything they could to limit compulsory redundancies Councillor Henig accused the Government of being “Robin Hood in reverse” – targeting the poor and giving to the wealthier areas.

He said that Durham was facing a year-on-year cut in its funding of 15 per cent, while Surrey County Council would lose only 0.3 per cent.

Measures being taken by the council include reviewing its spending, the budgets given to councillors and the support the council gives to community buildings.