Border staff to strike the day before Olympics

Ministers have been told they have to use public transport to get to Olympic venues like the Olympic Park (Getty Images)

UK Border Agency staff are to strike the day before the Olympics Opening Ceremony, bringing the threat of long queues at Heathrow immigration desks as officials, athletes, dignitaries and tourists arrive in London.

The Public and Commercial Services Union, whose members are Home Office staff including border officials, voted for the strike yesterday and the union's general secretary Mark Serwotka, pictured, confirmed the one-day action would go ahead. For the rest of the Olympic period a work-to-rule and a ban on overtime will also be in place.

David Cameron, who is in Afghanistan, said: "I do not believe it will be right. I do not believe it will be justified." Union leaders say the strike is in protest at "public service falling apart at the seams", as thousands of job cuts, pension reform and pay freezes loom over much of the public sector.

Hours before the strike was called, the Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who has ministerial responsibility for the Olympics, said a strike "would be out of tune with the British public". He said: "The unions will lose huge amounts of public support if they try to do this. The vast majority of the public want a successful Games".

Border staff went on strike in May, without a significant increase in the sort of queuing problems at Heathrow that, with the Games looming, had already made headlines around the world. But the unions claim that the staff that were brought in to replace them did not check passports properly.

Meanwhile, hundreds of Whitehall staff, including many from the Home Office, have taken annual leave to work as some of more than 70,000 volunteer "gamesmakers". Hundreds of volunteers are also working for free at Heathrow, a crucial part of Olympic infrastructure plans.

One gamesmaker at the airport told i: "It's incredibly disheartening.

"A lot of us who volunteered naturally wanted to be at the Olympic Park, but I'm still very proud to be here, doing my bit. I'm sure it'll all work out fine, and I'm not making light of their issues, but why do it now? It is childish in the extreme."

Drivers on East Midlands Trains will hold a three-day strike from 6 August while RMT members on South West Trains have voted to take industrial action, short of a strike, in a dispute over an Olympic bonus.