Council services are set to be crippled on Wednesday as thousands of workers walk out on strike.

About 7,000 members of public services union UNISON will walk out from 12.15pm to 5pm and go to a mass rally.

The union says it has reached the end of the line in a dispute with Bradford Council about new terms and conditions planned for workers' contracts.

But members of the GMB - including bin crews and street cleaners - have been instructed by their union to carry on working.

A GMB spokesman said letters have gone out to their 1,600 members saying they should work and if necessary cross picket lines because a stoppage would be in breach of their contracts and they could lose their jobs. The UNISON members work in departments dealing with services including benefits and housing.

And Liz Devlin, joint chairman of the Bradford branch of Unison, said: "This is just the start. From the time of the strike we will not co-operate with the Council's staffing restructure or cover vacant posts."

The union has been in talks with the Council for months about changes covering redundancy, salary protection and training.

Council bosses say voluntary redundancy would be considered after 12 weeks on the re-deployment register. But the union says staff should have an automatic entitlement to voluntary redundancy.

The Council has now served notice on existing contracts which ends in January and said it had hoped to continue talks with the unions until then.

The union, which has 7,000 members among the workforce, balloted its members on strike action two weeks ago.

It says 37 per cent of members took part in the postal poll and 78.5 per cent voted in favour of action.

Council leader Councillor Margaret Eaton said the authority made efforts to reach an agreement, but despite making concessions talks broke down.

She added: "What we offered the unions is significantly better than what is provided in the majority of other public or private sector organisations."

She said the majority of employees understand that the Council remains a very good employer with excellent terms and conditions of employment.

The rally at the Hilton Hotel between 1pm and 2pm on Wednesday will be attended by Dave Prentis, general secretary of UNISON, and Clive Williams, president of the regional TUC. Speakers will include Bradford North MP Terry Rooney.