Northern Ireland civil servants staging strike action in an an increasingly bitter pay dispute are to target the Pension Credit system this week, it was announced today.
Up to 60 telephone staff at the Social Security Agency pensions centre in Derry will strike from Monday, said public service union NIPSA.
However the union indicated it was likely to offer to agree an emergency arrangement to deal with the small number of cases where there was a risk of a claimant being left without any income.
At the same time Vehicle Licensing staff from local offices in Derry and Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh are to join the strike.
Over the past fortnight staff involved in handling postal applications for road tax have been on strike, but return to work tomorrow.
The union has been staging industrial action since early December in protest at what it claims is the British government's refusal to give them a cost of living pay rise from April last year.
They claim 3.6 per cent added to the wage bill did no more than pay for pre-agreed annual grading increments and most staff had received nothing.
In the bitter dispute there have been two all-out 24-hour strikes by up to 20,000 civil servants, a strict work to rule and a series of focused strikes by key groups of workers aimed at disrupting the workings of government with the fewest number of actual strikers.
NIPSA general secretary Mr John Corey said there was still no sign of a resolution to the dispute and demanded the British government act.
He said it was time Northern Ireland Finance Minister Mr Ian Pearson and senior civil servants recognised that his members were "as determined today as the day of the first strike on December 11th to fight against the blatant unfairness of a 0 per cent increase in rates of pay from April 2003".
PA