The surging civil service dispute over jobs, pay, pensions and conditions, has prompted the British passport office workers to embark on a five-week strike.
According to PCS General Secretary, Mark Serwotka, more than 1,000 members of the Public and Commercial Services union at eight sites walked out on Monday in an escalation of the long-running row, NAN reports.
Serwotka also stated that picket lines will be mounted outside the offices in Glasgow, Durham, Liverpool, Southport, Peterborough, London, Belfast and Newport in Wales.
However, the union said those taking action will be supported by a strike fund.
In response to the situation, Serwotka had written to the government calling for urgent talks in a bid to resolve the dispute.
Aafter negotiations were held with unions representing health workers and teachers, he accused ministers of treating its own employees differently to others in the public sector.
With a nationwide walkout of more than 130,000 civil servants planned for April 28, the union is stepping up strikes.
Meanwhile, the Home Office said the passport office had already processed more than 2.7 million applications this year.
It revealed that over 99.7 per cent of standard applications were being processed within 10 weeks, with the majority of those delivered to customers well under this timescale.
