Nearly 3,000 employees of Nordic telecoms giant TeliaSonera are planning to launch a four-day strike next week, their union said Thursday.

Set to begin on Monday, "the strike will affect consumers, because customers will be unable to open new accounts, report problems, and problems will not be fixed," the white-collar union Pro said in a statement.

This is the second strike to hit the operator so far this year.

On March 30, Pro organised a five-day strike, which it said shut down most stores across the country, something Sonera Finland denied.

Employees are protesting TeliaSonera's plans to axe up to 300 jobs in Finland, claiming that the company is offering better layoff conditions to Swedish employees.

TeliaSonera posted a 2010 net profit of 21.26 billion kronor (2.40 billion euros, $3.31 billion), which was a 13-percent-rise from the previous year.

But the result narrowly missed expectations, and the company said it would cut 800 jobs in Sweden and Finland.

TeliaSonera was born out of the 2002 merger between Swedish operator Telia and Finnish Sonera.