UK Border Force to hold four-day strike

Border Force officers said Tuesday they would stage a four-day stoppage during school holidays in February, the latest walk-out to hit the UK.

Around 1,000 officers in the southern English port of Dover as well as the French ports of Calais and Dunkirk would take industrial action from February 17-20.

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The UK has been hit by an escalating wave of strikes in recent months with workers protesting over wages that have failed to keep pace with decades-high inflation.

On Wednesday teachers and train drivers will dominate a fresh round of UK-wide strikes.

The Border Force strike would coincide with the end of the February half term school break and “impact on people returning from their holidays,” said PCS union general secretary Mark Serwotka.

Border Force officers also walked out on eight days in late December.

Armed forces personnel then stood in for passport control staff at UK airports but Serwotka said the government would not be “able to do that in France.”

He said members had been offered a two percent rise “at a time when inflation is around 10 percent.”

“Many civil servants are already having to choose between heating and eating, having to claim the benefits they themselves have to administer and they are having to go to foodbanks,” he added.

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