Passengers landing in Britain today face the prospect of long queues as thousands of Border Force begin strike action…reports Asian Lite News
Planes, trains, driving lessons and postal deliveries are set to be disrupted by walkouts in the days before Christmas.
National Highways, Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) and Royal Mail employees are due to take industrial action today.
As they continue their strike into Saturday, they will be joined by rail workers represented by the RMT, Abellio London bus workers, and Environment Agency employees, who will launch separate waves of action.
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This follows two days of strikes by NHS staff, as thousands of nurses walked out on Tuesday, and ambulance workers joined picket lines on Wednesday.
Passengers landing in Britain today face the prospect of long queues as thousands of Border Force begin strike action.
More than 250,000 passengers arriving at UK airports have been warned to expect delays amid walkouts from the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union.
The walkout will affect travellers at Heathrow, Birmingham, Cardiff, Gatwick, Glasgow and Manchester airports, and the port of Newhaven in East Sussex.
The competition watchdog has launched a more in-depth investigation in Hitachi’s proposed purchase of Thales’s rail infrastructure after warning it could lead to higher prices for passengers.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) raised concerns over the $1.7bn (£1.5bn) deal among the signalling operators earlier this month.
The CMA said it will launch the thorough phase two probe after the firms said they will not be offering any changes to appease the regulator’s competition concerns.
Britain’s principal customer for mainline signalling, Network Rail, is putting in place a tendering process for its next major signalling procurement.
The Office of Rail and Road found earlier that mainline signalling in Britain was provided by only two suppliers – Alstom and Siemens – and it said that lack of competition could increase operators’ costs with “an adverse knock-on effect on taxpayers and passengers”.
A deal between Hitachi and Thales could eliminate a credible competitor from the new tendering process, it said.
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