Driving examiner strike begins today in Scotland with England and Wales set to follow
DVSA workers have begun a month-long strike programme, affecting drivers looking to sit their test.
Members of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), will strike throughout Scotland, England and Wales from Tuesday.
In total 100,000 PCS members working across 214 government departments and other bodies voted to strike over pay, pensions, jobs and redundancy terms.
The month-long rolling strike programme by DVSA workers runs from 13 December to 18 December in Scotland and Northern England.
The strike will then continue in North West England, Yorkshire, Humberside and North Wales between 19-24 December, the West Midlands, Eastern England and the East Midlands between 28-31 December and 3 January.
It will then culminate in London, the South East, South Wales and the South West between 4-11 January.
Drivers looking to sit their test in Dumfries will be affected over the next week as it is one of the test centres hampered by the strike action.
From Monday 19 December to Christmas Eve drivers looking to sit their test in Carlisle, Kendal and Workington will be affected.
PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka said: “This is the start of the most sustained strike action by civil servants for a generation.
“They have been offered just a 2% pay rise at a time when inflation is running at over 10%.
"They are determined, they are strong and they been left with no other way of expressing their concerns about the cost-of-living crisis than to take strike action.
"For the government’s own workforce to be reduced to using food banks because they can’t afford to buy food or burning candles at home because they can’t afford to turn their lights on is nothing short of a scandal.
“Rather than trying to tighten anti-trade union laws, attacking the unions and avoiding responsibility for the mess they’ve caused, the government should address the real issue faced by hundreds of thousands of workers, and put some money on the table to resolve the dispute and, more importantly, help its own workforce survive the winter.”
It comes as a month of travel disruption begins in the UK with members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) pressing ahead with strikes on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
Workers will walk out for their first of a wave of 48-hour strikes on Tuesday, while nurses also prepare to take unprecedented industrial action.
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