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British teachers and civil servants are expected to strike this week despite further talks on Monday between the government and unions over reforming public sector pensions.

The action will close schools and government offices and could lead to disruption at airports and ports and could be just a taste of wider strikes later this year.

The government has condemned Thursday's planned walk out by up to 750,000 people – around one in eight of public sector workers.

"Talk of industrial action is completely premature," Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude told the BBC.

The Conservative-led government is facing a challenge familiar to other European countries – how to support an aging population at a time when it is trying to cut spending.

"A sensible balance between life spent in work and life in retirement makes sense and makes these pensions affordable," Mr. Maude added.

The proposed reforms, based on a review by a former government minister from the opposition Labour party, would see pensions based on final salaries replaced with cheaper pensions based on earnings over the course of a whole career. Employees would contribute more to their pension pot and the retirement age would rise.

Union membership has dwindled in Britain since Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government took on miners and print workers in the 1980s and imposed fundamental reforms that changed the face of British industry.

The Trades Union Congress (TUC), union umbrella body, now has more than six million members, but the public sector remains a stronghold for activists.

Public sector workers are already facing a wage freeze and more than 300,000 job losses as the government cuts spending. For some in the unions, the pension reform is the last straw.

Union chiefs have warned the issue could later this year prompt the biggest labour stoppages since the 1926 general strike when more than three million workers went on strike for nine days.

Brian Strutton, national secretary of the GMB Union, said Monday's talks would need to rebuild confidence after unions accused Treasury minister Danny Alexander of dictating to them in a hard-line speech earlier this month.

"I expect the meeting will seek to rebuild confidence in the negotiating process," Mr. Strutton, who will attend the talks, told Reuters.

"There won't be any substantive moves on either side but I expect another one or two meetings going into July."

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