General secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union Mark Serwotka
(Picture: PA Archive)A union chief has warned of further travel chaos and said a huge strike in the Port of Dover is “inevitable” unless the Government step in.
Thousands of Border Force staff from the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union are walking out today in a dispute over pay and conditions, meaning further delays at some of the country’s biggest airports at one of the busiest times of the year.
The PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka has said up to 100,000 civil servants could strike after Christmas unless an agreement is reached.
Speaking to Times Radio, he said: “Surely everyone can see that everyone can’t be wrong – nurses, paramedics, Border Force staff. It’s the Government who are wrong to think that they can force people to have historic cuts in their living standards when they could do something about it.
“Colleagues in Jobcentres, also PCS members, are on strike today in Liverpool and Doncaster all over Christmas because they face redundancy – compulsory redundancy – even though we need more staff in Jobcentres to deliver the cost-of-living crisis help people need.
“We know they are so short-staffed in the Home Office that we have hundreds of thousands of claims that are backing up. In the Manston immigration centre, they had four times more people in it, in some cases living for weeks with disease rife, because there wasn’t enough staff.
“It’s a civil service problem, lack of staffing, threats to people’s jobs and the lowest pay offer anywhere in the economy.”
Mr Serwotka said the Government is “missing in action” and refusing to negotiate with union members despite thousands of them visiting food banks amid the cost-of-living crisis.
He later told BBC Breakfast: “Even there, civil servants cannot make ends meet. We voted to go on strike because we have been given the lowest pay rise anywhere across the economy – 2%. Inflation is at 11%.
“The Government knows the people it employs, that 40,000 of them are using food banks and 45,000 civil servants are claiming in-work benefits, including the people who administer these benefits in Jobcentres because they are the in-work poor.”
Meanwhile, rail passengers have been urged to avoid travelling on Christmas Eve altogether as the RMT union carries out its latest strike, with every rail company expected to be affected.
A separate strike by depot workers affecting East Midlands Railway means a heavily reduced service on its routes today too.
On the roads, traffic officers and control room operators with National Highways - which manages the coun- try’s biggest roads - have also begun a four-day walkout in London and the south-east of England until Boxing Day.
An estimated 17 million motorists are expected to be on the road across Friday and Saturday, with traffic expected to be heaviest between 10am and 7pm. The surging cost of fuel means families will have to fork out more money to make their journeys.
Around 1,000 Border Force staff who are members of the Public and Commercial Services union will strike every day from now until the end of the year, except on December 27
Their posts will be filled by soldiers and volunteers within the civil service, although there are fears the walkout will lead to delays and long queues at passport control, and even long waits on arriving aircraft.
Airports affected include Heathrow and Gatwick, as well as Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow and Manchester.
Almost 2million passengers are booked to fly into the affected airports during the stoppages, around 1.5million of them at Heathrow and Gatwick.
