Civil servants 'to staff borders' during strikes

[denphone]

Civil servants from across Whitehall are being lined up to act as border staff at UK ports and airports during next week's public sector strikes.

The UK Border Agency has insisted the civil servants will be properly trained despite union concerns.

Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, said: "This underlines not only the level of desperation at the top of UKBA but also the important work staff do day in, day out.

"It's an insult to hard-working border force staff that, in an effort to break a strike entirely of their own making, the government is scratching around trying to cover skilled work with volunteers with next to no training."

[spanna]

"It's an insult to hard-working border force staff that, in an effort to break a strike entirely of their own making, the government is scratching around trying to cover skilled work with volunteers with next to no training."

So is his suggestion we just shut the country down while they strike?

What an idiot

[heero_yuy]

These border staff are presumably the same ones who've been waving every Tom, Dick and Abdul through un-checked for the last few months. No change there then.

[Chris]

... and the managers who will cover the strike days are the ones that told the border staff to wave Tom, Dick and Abdul through un-checked.

Not to stray off topic though.

Isn't it funny, lurking just beneath the surface you can see Serwotka just itching to start screaming "Scabs! Black-legs!" at the top of his voice.