The Public and Commercial Services Union said around 270,000 of its members across the UK working in every Government department would vote later this month on a rolling programme of industrial action which will extend into the New Year.

The PCS will also try to co-ordinate any strikes with other unions which could lead the Government on a collision course with up to a million workers later in the year.

A wage dispute involving half a million council workers remains unresolved, while teachers are to be balloted soon on whether to launch more strikes, also over pay.

Today the TUC, meeeting in Brighton, will debate a hard hitting motion calling for industrial action in the public sector to be co-ordinated.

General Secretary Brendan Barber said the Government had to respond to the economic downturn by demonstrating they were on the side of ordinary people.

The TUC argued that £5bn a year could be raised by increasing taxes on the "super rich" and by closing tax loopholes.

The union organisation also stepped up calls for a windfall tax on the profits of energy firms.

In a statement on the economy yesterday the TUC's General Council hit out at the two per cent public sector pay target arguing it did nothing to deal with inflation.

"Forcing a nurse in Bradford or a driving test examiner in Swansea to suffer a cut in their standard of living will not reduce the price of a barrel of oil but will slow the economy at a time when we need growth."

The TUC said there was now a widening gap between the pay of workers in the private and public sectors which it warned was threatening relations between the Government and unions.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown was criticised yesterday for holding a Cabinet meeting in Birmingham while pay is debated at the conference.

Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS, said it would have been a "golden opportunity" for Ministers to hear first hand how ordinary workers were struggling to pay soaring fuel and food bills.

He said the fresh strike ballot followed growing anger over the Government's policy of trying to limit pay rises in the public sector to two per cent this year, which he complained was disproportionately hitting some of the lowest-paid workers.

A series of walkouts have already been held this year by coastguards, immigration officers, driving test examiners, passport and jobcentre staff but if members approve the new wave of industrial action it would be the biggest bout of strikes by civil servants for years.

Every single Government department would be affected including the Home Office, Education and Transport departments as well as the Work and Pensions department.

Mr Serwotka said the plight of many civil servants had been highlighted by research for the union showing that a quarter of staff earned less than £16,500 a year.

Their low pay had been compounded by below-inflation wage rises for the past few years; in the Department of Work and Pensions two out of five staff had no pay rise this year.

Mr Serwotka said: "The Government says it is on the side of hard-pressed families, yet compound the financial misery for hundreds of thousands of hard working people by pursuing an unjust pay policy.

"The Government is out of touch with the people who keep this country running and who deliver the everyday things we take for granted.

"Our members have grown increasingly frustrated by the Government peddling the myth that they are the causes of inflation when they see their food, fuel and housing costs soar."

Keith Sonnet, deputy general of Unison, said there was a "huge level of unhappiness" among workers with the Government.

"We cannot have the Government sitting around doing nothing – we expect a Labour Government to do more."

He called for a change of policy rather than of leadership.