Passport Office workers in Durham will launch a five-week strike on Monday in an increasingly bitter dispute over jobs, pay, pensions and conditions.
HM Passport Office on Freeman's Place in Durham is one of eight sites across the UK where workers will walk out in an escalation of the long-running row. More than 1,000 members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) are walking out, with picket lines also mounted in Glasgow, Liverpool, Southport, Peterborough, London, Belfast and Newport in Wales.
The union said that a strike fund has been put in place to support those taking action. Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, has written to the Government calling for urgent talks in a bid to resolve the dispute.
