Driving examiners, coastguard staff and DVLA workers striking tomorrow
Driving examiners and coastguard staff in the PCS union will hold lightning strikes tomorrow (8 June) in the latest phase of a month of action by transport workers.
Staff from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency are walking out over plans to close nine of the UK’s 18 coastguard stations and cut more than 140 jobs, which would mean the loss of life-saving local knowledge around our coastline.
In the Driving Standards Agency, the PCS fears job cuts, privatisation and the closure of driving test centres will mean a worse service for candidates taking their tests.
The walkouts – which will also include a two-hour strike by the union’s 3,200 members at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency headquarters in Swansea – are part of a wave of action by the union’s 8,000 members in the Department for Transport, which started last Friday (1st) in the DVLA’s closure-threatened local offices.
This is designed to complement ongoing national industrial action being taken by the union against cuts to pensions, jobs and pay, which included a strike across the civil service, health and education sectors on 10 May.
Driving examiners will be out for two hours from 2pm. In the MCA there will be a series of one-hour walkouts:
- starting with night shift workers from 3am until 4am on Friday
- followed by day shift workers from 11am to 12pm on Saturday 9 June
- then alternating between night and day shift strikes up to and including the day shift Friday 15 June
- all walkouts will be between 3am and 4am on nights, and 11am and 12pm on days
Further strikes will be held throughout June by staff in the DfT’s headquarters and its seven agencies.
