Members of Unison voted by 55 per cent to take industrial action after rejecting a 2.45 per cent pay offer.
The union's negotiators were deciding today what action to recommend to the national strike committee on Friday, but a two-day strike in mid-July is expected, followed by further stoppages if the deadlock is not broken.
Social workers, housing benefit staff, teaching assistants, dinner ladies, cooks, cleaners, architects, traffic wardens and dustmen would join the strike in the biggest show of industrial unrest for years.
Jobcentre and benefit office workers and other civil servants could take industrial action later in the year in separate rows, while probation officers, Ofsted inspectors, meat and hygiene inspectors and further education staff are also in dispute over pay, highlighting the breadth of anger and simmering unrest across the public sector.
Unison boss Dave Prentis said of the council workers' ballot: "This is a solid vote for action and a clear message to the local government employers that our members are willing to fight for a decent pay rise.
"They are fed up and angry that they are expected to accept pay cut after pay cut while bread-and-butter prices go through the roof. Most of them are low-paid workers."
Unison said 250,000 council workers earned less than £6.50 an hour, most of them women, and were not prepared to accept below inflation pay rises.
The unions were claiming a six per cent pay rise or 50p an hour, whichever was greater.
Employers pointed out that almost 600,000 workers were balloted, but the turnout was 27 per cent.
Brian Baldwin, of the local government employers' negotiators, said: "Any strike action Unison calls could have serious implications for some of the most vulnerable people in society."
Members of the GMB union who work in local government have accepted the same offer but officials said this was only because they could not afford to go on strike.
Anger over public sector pay has been raging after the government made it clear they wanted deals kept to two per cent a year for the next few years despite rising inflation.
Tweet