York museums today looked set to be crippled by two more strikes, raising fears that the city's tourist economy could suffer serious long-term damage.

Staff from the Castle Museum, Yorkshire Museum, York Story and City Art Gallery decided last night to stage a one-day walkout within the coming month - probably during the city's big Food and Drink Festival.

And that will be followed within weeks by a two-day strike, unless City of York Council withdraws proposals to cut weekend pay and reduce working hours for staff.

The action follows a four-day strike over the August Bank Holiday weekend, when the attractions would normally have been packed with thousands of visitors.

The strikes are the culmination of a bitter dispute over the City of York Council's pay cut plans, which are intended to help tackle a financial crisis in the museums budget.

The staff, who claim the cuts will leave them thousands of pounds out of pocket, have turned down compensation packages offered by the council.

About 40 members of the Unison union held an emergency meeting last night to discuss their next move and voted unanimously to press ahead with further strikes, said spokesman Peter Household.

"We feel that the council is still not in a very talkative mood and will not back down, so we have decided to strike again for three days," he said.

The first strike will probably coincide with the week-long Food and Drink Festival, which starts on September 19 and is expected to attract many visitors to the city who might want to go on to visit a museum.

Mr Household revealed that £1,000 had been donated to a strike fund during the action, which would be distributed to strikers as they struggled to cope with their loss of income.

He said he was amazed that the council had still not agreed an offer from the union to seek conciliation via a local government conciliation service.

Bob Scrase, chairman of the council's leisure services committee, said: "Unison has informed the council that they will be taking strike action, which we believe is unhelpful when there are proposals on the table for discussion."

Gillian Cruddas, chief executive of the York Tourism Bureau, said she was "very disappointed" to hear of the further action.

And she warned that continuing strikes could cause serious long-term damage to the York tourism economy, working counter to the bureau's efforts to promote York as a tourist destination.

She said regional TV coverage in particular had created uncertainty for visitors thinking of coming to York.

And those who came and were unable to go to a museum would return home with some feeling of disappointment. "They will go away thinking: "It was great...but..."

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