UP to 3,000 civil service workers in Newport are set to strike on Friday as part of a nationwide action over government plans to axe 100,000 jobs.

Workers from the Passport Office, the DWP offices and the Patent Office will take part in the 24-hour action.

The one-day strike, the biggest in a generation, has been called by the Public and Commercial Services Union over the plans which they claim will decimate the civil service. Yesterday, at a Union Member Rally in Newport, Peter Harris, of the PCS National Office for Wales, said: "The message of our campaign is that the government cannot arbitrarily cut staff without it having a negative impact on Welsh public services.

"Civil servants work as a team delivering the things we take for granted, such as passports, driving licences or child benefit.

"Collecting the taxes to pay for hospitals and schools, stopping drugs from flowing into the country and making sure people get their winter fuel payments doesn't happen by magic."

Earlier this week the PCS Wales Office called for a parliamentary inquiry into the impact of the cuts in Wales, where up to 6,000 jobs could be lost.

Mr Harris said: "PCS have written to the chairman of the Welsh Affairs Select Committee to request an urgent investigation into the impact of Gordon Brown's cuts on our local services and economies.

"We fear that drastic job cuts programme has been drawn up in Whitehall with little or no regard to the geography or poor transportation systems in Wales."

The government is making the cuts in a bid to reduce bureaucracy in the civil service.