Passport Office workers are to begin a five-week strike from today (April 3) in a dispute over jobs, pay, pensions and conditions.
More than 1,000 members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) at eight sites will walk out as the long-running row escalates.
The action will take place from April 3 to May 5 in England, Scotland and Wales, however, those in Belfast will strike from April 7 to May 5.
Picket lines will be mounted outside offices in Glasgow, Durham, Liverpool, Southport, Peterborough, London, Belfast and Newport in Wales today.
A strike fund will support the Passport Office staff who are taking action, the union said.
🚨🚨 𝗕𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 🚨🚨
— PCS Union (@pcs_union) March 17, 2023
More than 1,000 PCS members working in the Passport Offices in England, Scotland and Wales are to take 5 weeks’ strike action.
More here: https://t.co/lCswDh9Qwz#PCSonStrike #BlameTheGovt pic.twitter.com/b5W90iGRE6
In a bid to resolve the dispute, PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka has written to the Government calling for urgent talks.
He has accused ministers of treating its own employees differently to others in the public sector after negotiations were held with unions representing health workers and teachers.
Strikes are being stepped up by the union with a nationwide walkout of more than 130,000 civil servants planned for April 28.
The Home Office said the Passport Office has already processed more than 2.7 million applications this year, adding over 99.7% of standard applications are being processed within 10 weeks with the majority of those delivered to customers well under this timescale.
Holidaymakers have been warned to allow 10 weeks for new passports if they’re travelling abroad this summer.
No plans are currently in place to change the official guidance that states it can take up to 10 weeks to get a passport.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel