Workers of the British Passport Office have embarked on a five-week strike to press their demand over jobs, pay, pensions and working conditions.
At least, 1,000 members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) at eight sites walked out in an escalation of the long-running row.
The PCS general secretary, Mark Serwotka said on Monday that picket lines will be mounted outside the offices in Glasgow, Durham, Liverpool, Southport, Peterborough, London, Belfast and Newport in Wales.
He said the union embarking on the strike action will be supported by a strike fund, noting that he had written to the government calling for urgent talks in a bid to resolve the dispute.
According to Serwotka, the union is stepping up strikes, with a nationwide walkout of more than 130,000 civil servants planned for April 28.
He, however, accused ministers of treating their own employees differently to others in the public sector after negotiations were held with unions representing health workers and teachers.
It was gathered that the Home Office said the passport office had already processed more than 2.7 million applications this year, and 99.7% of standard applications were being processed within 10 weeks, with the majority of those delivered to customers well under this timescale.
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British Passport Office Workers Embark on 5-Week Strike