Staff in Oxfordshire job centres and benefit agencies who fear Government plans will put their safety at risk were expected to strike for a second time today.

The Public and Commercial Services Union has organised the 48-hour nationwide strike in protest against plans by the Department of Work and Pensions to remove protective screens in offices where staff deal with the public.

The move is part of the department's plans to merge benefits services and Jobcentres, creating a single agency -- Jobcentre Plus.

Employees at the Oxford Jobcentre, in Gloucester Green, the Benefits Agency, in Floyd's Row, and the Department for Work and Pensions, at Cowley Business Park, are expected to take part in the strike.

The walk-out comes a month after computers, office equipment and windows were damaged during an incident at the Abingdon Jobcentre.

Tracey Rogers, branch secretary of the PCS, said: "The incident in Abingdon has brought home to staff the direct threats we will experience under the new organisation.

"We have not been given adequate safeguards from management to protect our safety, and are dismayed at the dismissive attitude of management and Government to the genuine fears of staff."

Julie Perry, branch organiser for the PCS at the Department for Work and Pensions at Cowley Business Park, said: "We can be in a confrontational situation because some of the people we deal with are dependent on drugs and alcohol.

"I do not put myself in danger outside work, so I do not see why I should come to work to put myself in a vulnerable position."

Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary elect, said the walk-outs were the biggest civil service industrial action in 15 years.

A spokesman for the Department of Work and Pensions said the Jobcentre Plus offices would create a more personal environment, by providing people with individual advisors to help them with both benefit claims and finding employment.