UK Passport Office Staff Begin 5-Week Strike
By Boniface Ihiasota, USA
The British Passport Office has been hit by a five-week strike as more than 1,000 members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) at eight sites walked out, said PCS general secretary, Mark Serwotka on Monday
The dispute, which has been ongoing for some time, centres around jobs, pay, pensions and conditions.
According to Serwotka, Picket lines will be mounted outside offices in Glasgow, Durham, Liverpool, Southport, Peterborough, London, Belfast and Newport in Wales.
The union said it will support those taking action with a strike fund.
Serwotka has written to the government calling for urgent talks to resolve the dispute, and accused ministers of treating their employees differently to those in the public sector.
The union is planning a nationwide walkout of more than 130,000 civil servants on April 28.
The Home Office said that, despite the strike, it had already processed over 2.7 million applications this year and that over 99.7% of standard applications were being processed within 10 weeks.
However, there are no plans to change the official guidance that states it takes up to 10 weeks to obtain a passport.
