WORKERS at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) in Swansea have voted overwhelmingly for strike action over Covid-19 concerns.

More than 71 per cent of PCS members who voted in the ballot backed a strike after the agency failed to heed calls for a huge reduction in the number of people required to attend the office — even after what the union described as the country’s worst workplace outbreak.

Bosses have insisted on more than 2,000 staff attending daily — between four and eight times the number required to come in for essential duties during the first lockdown, the union said.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: “This result is a damning indictment on DVLA management in their abject failure to keep staff safe.

“Our members have sent a loud and clear message that they are not safe at their place of work. The strength of feeling amongst staff comes as no surprise, given the management’s disregard for their safety.

“Our members have been forced into this position and industrial action will take place unless management immediately implements all necessary changes to ensure staff are safe at work.”

A DVLA spokesperson said the agency had “followed and implemented Welsh government guidance at every single point throughout the pandemic,” adding that Covid-19 cases among staff “remain low, and that December’s outbreak of 62 cases “reflected the same trends in the wider community at that time.”

Labour shadow transport secretary Jim McMahon said: “It is shameful that staff are having to strike because of Tory ministers’ failure to keep them safe from Covid in a government building.

“The Transport Secretary (Grant Shapps) has failed to explain why he ignored warnings about this, and how a government agency appears to have become the site of the largest workplace outbreak of the virus.

“He must act immediately to sort out this mess of his own creation.”