TUC to consider general strike Unite, the UK's largest union, backed the general strike motion. Photograph: Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images Trade unions are to consider staging the first general strike in the UK since 1926, which could involve 6 million workers, following a vote at the annual Trades Union Congress. A motion proposed by the POA, the prison officers' union, called on the labour movement to investigate the "practicalities" of holding a general strike, which would be expected to include the 6.5 million trade union members in the UK and cause widespread upheaval. The motion was carried. The motion, which has not had unanimous backing behind the scenes, calls on the TUC to co-ordinate industrial action against government austerity measures "with far-reaching campaigns including the consideration and practicalities of a general strike." The three largest unions in the UK - Unite, Unison and the GMB, whose memberships straddle the public and private sectors - backed it. The TUC represents 53 trade unions, whose members make up much of Britain's working adult population, from airline cabin crew to primary school teachers, train drivers and fuel tanker operators. The UK's largest union, Unite, said it "proudly" supported the motion and called on the TUC to call out workers on a political dispute, which the union believes would be deemed legal under the European convention on human rights. "Doing nothing is not an option," said Steve Turner, a Unite official. Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT rail union, said every delegate at the conference represented workers who had been affected by government austerity measures, laying the ground for calling a series of co-ordinated disputes with employers across the UK. "Every single person here today is representing someone who is under attack by this rotten government," he said. But the motion was not passed unanimously amid dissenting voices on the podium. The NASUWT and ATL teaching unions opposed the motion, as did the pilots' union, Balpa, the Prospect civil service union and the shopworkers' union, Usdaw. Chris Keates, the NASUWT general secretary, whose union announced a work-to-rule protest in alliance with the NUT this week, said the motion risked "alienating the general public." She added: "Let's not convince ourselves that talking about us calling a general strike is a magic bullet." The POA's general secretary, Steve Gillan, said warnings that the motion would hand the government a "stick to beat us with" ignored the impact of public spending cuts since 2010. "As for giving our opponents a stick to beat us with," he said, "I think they are already doing that and it is starting to hurt." The last general strike in the UK took place in 1926 and lasted nine days, co-ordinated by the TUC, provoked by a dispute over attempts to impose a wage cut on miners. Large numbers of workers took part from a range of industries, from road transport to steel and printing. The TUC said that over the next year it would examine the legal and practical issues around holding a general strike.