UK passport office staff are starting a five-week strike in an increasingly bitter civil service dispute over jobs, pay, pensions and conditions.
More than 1,000 members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) at eight sites are walking out in an escalation of the long-running row.
Picket lines will be mounted today outside the offices in Glasgow, Durham, Liverpool, Southport, Peterborough, London, Belfast and Newport in Wales.
The union said those taking action will be supported by a strike fund.
PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka has written to the Government calling for urgent talks in a bid to resolve the dispute.
He has accused ministers of treating its own employees differently to others in the public sector after negotiations were held with unions representing health workers and teachers.
The union is stepping up strikes, with a nationwide walkout of more than 130,000 civil servants planned for 28 April.
The Home Office said the Passport Office has already processed more than 2.7 million applications this year, adding over 99.7% of standard applications are being processed within 10 weeks, with the majority of those delivered to customers well under this timescale.
There are currently no plans to change official guidance which states that it takes up to 10 weeks to get a passport.
The UK has been hit by a wave of industrial action across the economy in recent months ranging from ambulance staff and rail staff to doctors, teachers and dock workers.
Unions say their members have been hit by a combination of decades-high inflation and stagnating wages that has left them struggling to pay their bills.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has rejected demands for big pay hikes saying they are unaffordable and will fuel inflation.
The UK government and teaching unions, however, earlier this month agreed to hold "intensive talks" a day after health unions said they had reached a deal on pay.
UK schools face more strikes as union members reject offer
Schools in England face fresh strikes this spring after members of the largest education union in the UK rejected the Government's pay offer.
An overwhelming 98% of National Education Union (NEU) teacher members in England, who responded in a consultative ballot, voted to turn down the deal.
The NEU, which had urged its members to reject the "insulting" offer, plans to hold two further days of teacher strikes on 27 April and 2 May.
The result of the ballot was announced at the start of the NEU's annual conference in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, this morning.
After a period of intensive talks with unions, the Government offered teachers a £1,000 one-off payment for the current school year (2022/23) and an average 4.5% pay rise for staff next year (2023/24).
Many schools in England were forced to partially or fully close during strikes staged by the NEU in February and March as a result of a dispute over pay.
Last week, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan suggested that teachers could miss out on an increased pay deal this year if they rejected the offer.
Mary Bousted and Kevin Courtney, joint general secretaries of the NEU, said: "This resounding rejection of the Government's offer should leave Gillian Keegan in no doubt that she will need to come back to the negotiating table with a much better proposal.
"The offer shows an astounding lack of judgment and understanding of the desperate situation in the education system.
"We have today written to the Education Secretary informing her of the next two days of strike action on April 27 and May 2 that NEU teacher members in England will now be taking.
"These strikes are more than three weeks away; Gillian Keegan can avoid them."
Members of the NASUWT teaching union, the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) and the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) are also being asked for feedback on the Government's offer.
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT, said last week that industrial action by school leaders will be "necessary" if NAHT members decide to reject the Government's "inadequate" pay offer.
In January, a ballot of NAHT members failed to meet the mandatory 50% turnout threshold required for strike action.
But the NAHT has said it could move to a second formal industrial action ballot if its members turn down the Government's pay offer.
