RESIDENTS will learn next week if a five-day council workers’ strike will take place.

Unison members voted for industrial action last month to fight compulsory redundancies at Kirklees Council.

By law, the trade union has until Friday, December 7, to announce a start date for the five-day strike, which must begin by January 17 at the latest.

Kirklees Unison branch secretary Paul Holmes said yesterday that negotiations were continuing.

“The current position is that there are positive talks taking place and they will go on next week,” he said.

“We will be meeting with the council’s assistant director of HR Rebecca Jones on Tuesday afternoon.”

Kirklees Unison’s 200 stewards plan to meet on Thursday to decide whether to go ahead with the strike.

Any strike is likely to lead to disruption for people in Huddersfield.

Eighty schools closed and 80,000 bin collections were missed during the last council workers’ strike in 2008.

Unison members voted for industrial action last month to oppose any compulsory redundancies as the council cuts its budget to cope with the public spending squeeze.

More than 500 staff have left Kirklees voluntarily in the past year, but the council plans to reduce numbers by a further 1,200.