Staff at Sheffield City Council have been asked to forgo a pay rise for the third year running.
To cut costs, the authority froze annual 1% increases for staff for two years from 2011. It now plans to extend the freeze until 2014.
UNISON said that staff are already facing financial difficulties due to the existing freeze.
The Labour-run council said it had saved £8m over the last two years through the increment freeze and other employee schemes such as buying additional leave, career breaks, voluntary reduction in hours, voluntary severance and voluntary retirement.
John Mordecai, chair of the Sheffield branch of UNISON, told the BBC: “We’re really annoyed about it. People are saying they are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet.
“Inflation hasn’t frozen, the cost of living has gone up in a variety of ways and that is putting pressure on our members who have families.”
It’s yet another illustration, among many, of why the March for a Future that Works on 20 October, in London, Glasgow and Belfast, is such an important part of the campaign to build an alternative to the government’s austerity policies.