Should passport workers strike for weeks?

PASSPORT Office workers are going on strike for five weeks in the run-up to the holiday season because they feel underpaid. How can they afford to lose 9 per cent of their annual salary? If they get an increase of 9 per cent, it will take them a year to make up the salary they lost during the strike. RAYMOND BLAKE, Ilchester, Somerset.

I AM a former civil servant and have sympathy for the Passport Office workers. The junior grades are the backbone that keep the Passport Office running. Their median salary is £21,380. Pay was frozen from 2011 to 2013, followed by a 1 per cent pay increase and a further pay freeze from 2020 to 2021. So there has been no real pay rise for 12 years. The proposed 2 per cent rise is an insult.

P. LITTLEWOOD, address supplied. AFTER years of no holidays abroad due to Covid, we all need a break. The passport workers know this, which is why they are choosing to strike now in the hope the Government will give in and pay them the 10 per cent increase they demand. Everyone is feeling the cost of living squeeze and there is not enough money to give every worker what they want. Striking is not the answer.

SARAH WILLIAMS, Hastings, E. Sussex. I REMEMBER when the Passport Office gave great service. Some years ago, it was the night before our holiday to The Gambia and I realised my passport had run out. I drove to Petty France in London at 5.30am so I could be first in the queue. When the doors opened at 9 am, I filled in the forms and handed over the relevant documents. At 9.40 am, I was given my new passport and managed to get to Gatwick in time for my 1pm flight.