Border officials have voted for industrial action, raising the spectre of strikes affecting passport queues at Heathrow during the busiest days of the Olympics.Members of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union have agreed to a one-day strike as well as an ongoing work-to-rule in protest against eroded pay and working conditions and the privatisation of civil service jobs, and to highlight what they describe as a "public service falling apart at the seams".
The Border Force is already stretched with supplementary staff enlisted to ensure there is no repeat of the reported three- or four-hour waits that made embarrassing headlines internationally earlier this year.
Emergency staff drafted in by the Home Office took the place of striking officials during action in May and last November. But while those strikes did not lead to significant extra queues, the PCS claims that untrained replacements waved through many passport holders to avoid lines building up. And Theresa May, already under fire for the G4S Olympic security fiasco where police and soldiers have had to step in for absent guards, will not wish to face further questions over security.
Guardian
