The workers’ union Unite has announced that atomic weapons workers will stage two 48-hour strikes from next Wednesday over what they claim are broken promises over pension cuts. Six hundred staff at the two Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) sites in Aldermaston and Burghfield, both in Berkshire, will strike for 48 hours from 18 January, and then for another 48-hour period from 30 January. AWE is owned by two US firms and a UK private security firm. The staff, all members of Unite, feel betrayed as the pensions, which they were assured would be ironclad when they were transferred to the private sector, will now be cut. AWE bosses have pledged to close the original scheme and replace it with a new contribution-based version from 31 January. Unite claims that the new scheme would be subject to the unforgiving ebb and flow of the stock exchange.