THE Trades Union Congress (TUC) will press for electronic strike ballots to be introduced in the workplace, its general secretary Frances O’Grady told the Morning Star yesterday.

Speaking from a north London picket line on the day of Britain’s biggest strike since 1926, Ms O’Grady slammed out-of-touch Prime Minister David Cameron for his hypocrisy in promising new strike thresholds while governing without a popular mandate.

She told the Morning Star: “All I have to say is ‘physician, heal thyself’.

“The Conservative party is in power with the support of only 23 per cent of the population. We’re the first to say we want more democracy and higher turnouts: we need the option of electronic ballots in the workplace. But you don’t get democracy by making it difficult for people to vote.”

And she warned that workers must resist the government’s divide-and-rule agenda.

“The government is trying to pit neighbour against neighbour,” she said. “But the unions are building in the private sector too: the Ritzy cinema is a great example, where the workers are fighting for a living wage.”

Matt Saywell, a private sector worker and GMB branch secretary, came down to the Unison picket line to show his support.

He said: “I think it’s important we all stick together. If public sector workers can win, then so can the private sector workers. David Cameron is trying to pit us against each other, but we won’t let that happen.”

Unison pickets outside Bidborough House – Camden council’s social services HQ – persuaded at least two workers to join the union on the spot – and thus be legally protected from staying off work.

The union’s head of local government told the Star that there were “really good reports from Unison picket lines across the country”.

Camden Unison chairwoman Phoebe Watkin said she was striking because low-paid workers were being forced to pay for a crisis caused by the rich.

She said: “We’re told there’s no money left – but that’s not true. There is money, it’s just going to those who don’t deserve it.”

For gymnastics coach Sinead McLoughlin, it was her first time on strike.

She said: “People are still being paid huge sums of money at the top of both the public and private sector. We don’t deserve the real terms pay cut that’s been forced upon us.”