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Passport workers strike in pay dispute

13/10/2006

Civil servants processing passport applications are striking today in an attempt to force their employers to raise their wage increases.

Members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) in seven offices of the Identity and Passports Service (IPC) are angry that while the cost of passports has gone up by 50 per cent in the last year, their wages have risen by one per cent above the cost of inflation.

Around 2,500 staff are thought to be participating in the strike, hitting offices in London, Peterborough, Newport, Durham, Belfast, Liverpool and Glasgow.

"If the IPS want to avoid further disruption then they need to start dealing with this year’s pay claim as a matter of urgency," PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said.

"Today's action could have been avoided if IPS management, rather than cancelling pay negotiations, had stuck to their word in seeking to resolve this year's pay claim as a matter of urgency."

Mr Serwotka added that staff were also angry that a pay claim issued by the PCS in June had not been dealt with, blaming the "inaction of the employer" as a cause for the strike.

The PCS strike takes place against a background of growing expectations about wage rises leading to overall inflation increases.

In an effort to save money and help prevent increased pay packages push inflation above its current level of 2.5 per cent, already half a point above the Bank of England's target, the Treasury is preventing civil service increases from rising above two per cent.

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