Strike ballot over axed workers

Maintenance workers for Liverpool City Council are holding a strike ballot after 63 staff were made redundant.

Interserve, which employs the workers on behalf of the council, announced the job losses by sending papers to employees' homes by taxi on Monday.

Members of T&G union decided to hold a ballot at a meeting on Thursday morning.

Union leaders were also due to meet Interserve managers later in the day.

'Unions consulted'

Thirty-eight of the 63 redundancies are to be compulsory, Interserve has said.

The company said it consulted unions over the job losses and has only cut posts where there is a surplus of resources.

But the T&G said members were not given the official 30-day notice of the job losses.

The union said the cuts could have been made through voluntary redundancies.