Members of the Public & Commercial Services Union (PCS) – which includes immigration officers and some air traffic controllers – have confirmed they will join a public strike on June 30th.

They will join as many as 250,000 members of the union during industrial action centred on a disagreement with government over pensions, retirement age and wages.

Nearly two thirds of PCS’ members agreed to walk out earlier after a national ballot.

The turn out was 32.4 per cent.

The National Union of Teachers (NUT), Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) and the University and College Union (UCU) have also agreed to co-ordinate action.

There will also be a month-long ban on overtime after the strike.

The unions argue the government’s “slash and burn” approach to tackling the budget deficit will mean vital public services are axed, hundreds of thousands of public sector workers will be thrown out of work, and those that remain will have their pay and pensions cut.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: “This result shows that public servants, who provide vital services from the cradle to the grave, will not stand back while everything they have ever worked for is taken from them.

“The government admits that money cut from pensions will go straight to the Treasury to help pay off the deficit in what is nothing more than a tax on working in the public sector.

“The very modest pay and pensions of public servants did not cause the recession, so they should not be blamed or punished for it.

“Unless ministers abandon their ideological plans to hollow out the public sector, they will face industrial action on a mass scale on June 30th and beyond.”