The national walkout by thousands of low-paid staff yesterday led to long queues outside the Royal Courts of Justice in central London. Union officials claimed security checks on people and bags were waived to speed up entry through the main door after other entrances were shut.
The PCS union says the dispute is over pay offers worth between 0.5% and 2.8% to clerks, guards, ushers and other blue and white-collar employees on starting salaries of £10,095 a year.
Private security staff were bussed to Liverpool from south London to keep open an immigration centre and at Reading county court a judge showed solidarity with strikers by buying a round of coffee for pickets.
A 48-hour strike scheduled for yesterday and today by 80,000 Jobcentre and benefit office workers was suspended for a fortnight so that union negotiators can consider a fresh pay offer.
The combined walkout in volving 100,000 civil servants still threatened would be the largest to hit Whitehall for more than a decade.
Ministers and senior civil servants insist performance-related awards will boost wage increases to as much as 8%.
Government departments said they were attempting to minimise the impact of industrial action by redeploying staff not involved. The Department for Constitutional Affairs, one of those hit by the walkouts, said it was attempting to keep courts open, but it admitted a skeleton service was operating in some areas.
The union is drawing up plans for more limited industrial action, including overtime bans and work to rules if the disputes remain unresolved.
Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, said: "Members up and down the country are braving the cold on picket lines, forced to strike by a belligerent management content to pay poverty wages and reward staff with a real term pay cut."
