A Labour spokesman insisted that the council leadership decided to set up an independent inquiry as soon as the allegations were made known to the whole council two months ago.And it was claimed that Cynthia Thomas O'Garrow, an elderly councillor who suffers from cataracts, was induced to sign a letter saying that she was joining the rebels after being told that it was demanding an inquiry into the Trotter charges. The dispute could escalate further when the RMT announces ballot results on 20 September for three further companies - South Central, South Eastern and Central Trains.The disputes involve claims for refreshment breaks and a demand that RMT members be paid for previous productivity improvements.Jimmy Knapp, general secretary of the RMT, said that Labour Party plans to curb industrial action in public services would not have helped to avoid the disruption. The action will involve 6,000 employees and cause considerable disruption in much of the rail system.The networks affected include the flagship Gatwick Express line, Cardiff Railways, South West Trains, InterCity West Coast, South West Trains, Anglia, and overnight staff at ScotRail who work on InterCity sleepers.Employers at Thames Trains and a solitary RMT member who works on the Island Line on the Isle of Wight voted against action.The four lines where guards and catering staff had already opted to walk out are: Regional Railways North East, North West Regional Railways, and South Wales and the West, and guards at ScotRail, who work in a division separate from sleeper staff, had also voted to strike. This is not on the agenda."It seems however that key policy spokesmen are being used to float ideas which the leader's office can subsequently deny Another union official said: "They are flying kites.". Industrial unrest on the rail network spread after guards and catering staff at another six train operators voted to walk out. In the wake of the ballot results announced yesterday, the RMT transport union called 24-hour strikes on Friday 20 September and Monday 23 September. Staff at a further four companies were already due to walk out on 23 September, raising the prospect of 10 separate stoppages that day. Any such proposal would be a matter for the party and the unions as a whole.

Union leaders are known to have warned Mr Blair of industrial unrest two to three years into a Labour government.Union leaders privately registered a combination of scepticism and fury last night, saying that such a proposal would have to face a vote at the Labour conference, which makes policy and where unions still command half of the vote.If such a referendum among party members was held, however, and it went in favour of a divorce between the two wings of the Labour movement, there would be strong pressure on the party conference to rubber-stamp the decision.Another interpretation was that senior party figures are "simply playing politics" after a week in which they came under constant fire from the officiates.Unions established the party in the early 20th century and have continued to be its main financial backers ever since.Stephen Byers, Labour's employment spokesman, said last night: "There is no basis for running these kinds of stories based on any comments I might have made."The stories originated at a dinner on Wednesday night attended by journalists from four national papers who this morning report that the Labour leadership has plans completely to distance the party from the trade unions if strikes make a Labour government unpopular."It is a ludicrous proposition," said Mr Byers.A senior union official said: "It is not within the gift of the Labour leader to cut the union link. The Labour leader, Tony Blair, last night denied that a ballot to sever the party's link with the unions would be held if there was widespread industrial unrest under a Labour government. However TUC sources understand that the idea was floated by a senior party figure at a dinner with political correspondents at the annual congress in Blackpool. Mr Blair's office denied there was any such proposal: "There is no foundation in the story and there is no such proposal."However the supposed strategy was revealed after a week in which the party came under constant fire from the unions at the TUC conference. The ILO standards allow for few restrictions on solidarity action. The print union leader welcomed Labour's commitments in its document "Building Prosperity, Flexibility, Efficiency and Fairness at Work", but said it "fell considerably short" of union aspirations.. He said legislation on secondary action should be brought into line with International Labour Organisation conventions, which derive from the United Nations Charter. Under Mr Blair the party has moved away from the pledge, pointing out that litigation under European law would probably reduce the qualifying period from the present two years to one.Mr Dubbins, secretary of the GPMU union, said a proposal giving strikers a right to claim unfair dismissal if they were sacked during lawful industrial action "invited victimisation".

Plans for ballots among workers before management was obliged to deal with unions were "cumbersome, bureaucratic and unworkable".Recognition should be "automatic" when a union could prove more than half the workforce were members.The proposition also demanded that a Blair cabinet grant full rights to workers on the first day of their employment, as promised by John Smith, the Labour leader who died in 1994. Alan Johnson, leader of the postal workers involved in the Royal Mail dispute, attacked Tony Blair's suggestion that his union should ballot on the latest peace offer. "The question of if and when or how many times we ballot is a matter for us as free independent trade unions, not a matter for the state."But the conference overwhelmingly defeated a proposition by Mr Johnson calling for workers to be allowed to strike without a vote when "urgent defensive action" was required.Proposing the resolution which called for a more radical Labour approach, Tony Dubbins, the print workers' leader, denounced its key proposals on union recognition as "nonsense". The TUC backed a resolution urging Labour to take reforms much further, adding to the party's embarrassment. New Labour's rift with the unions widened yesterday when the TUC urged it to toughen proposals on employment law to allow unlimited secondary action and give workers full rights from "day one". The European Court is expected to rule next month that the law is a health and safety measure which applies in all member countries under the single-market treaty provisions.Health and safety measures can be introduced by majority votes, which means they can be imposed against the wishes of the British Government.Labour is pledged to sign up to the Social Chapter, strongly supported by the trade unions, which regard Europe as an important guarantor of employees' rights and public safety.. The average British lorry driver works a 62-hour week, flight crews can work up to 60 hours a week and case studies include a ship's captain who worked 98 hours over a seven-day period.But the Government has challenged the existing European law restricting the working week on the grounds that it should be a Social Chapter measure which would not apply in Britain. I just wish that they would accept there is a crisis here and it is a desperately serious crisis," he said.William Waldegrave, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, argued for greater flexibility rather than further European regulation of the labour market in a speech in the City.He said it would be "crazy" to deny that people had feelings of job insecurity, but said: "Things are not as pessimistic as they seem."About half the people now entering temporary work find more permanent jobs within a year, he said, and "Britain is much better at moving people up from the bottom pay levels to higher pay levels".Britain was a much more upwardly mobile society, more like America than other European countries, he said.The Independent revealed yesterday that the European Commission is drawing up proposals to extend its maximum 48-hour week rule to people who usually work long hours but are excluded from the existing European law.A spokeswoman for the employment commissioner, Padraig Flynn, told BBC Radio: "We have said we need to look again at these sectors because there is no technical justification for the exclusion of a number of these sectors and activities from the directive."Mr Monks welcomed the proposal which would guarantee proper rest breaks and benefit more than half a million British transport workers.The TUC believes transport workers would stand to benefit most from legal limits to working time.