SHEPPEY'S steel workers are due to join the next protest march and rally in London on June 8 to campaign for pension rights.

A contingent from Allied Steel & Wire’s former Sheerness plant will be among the members of various pension funds who are protesting about the loss of their pensions.

Keith Plowman, chairman of the Sheerness Pensions Fund Action Group and a manager at the Sheerness plant now owned by Thamesteel, said the march was designed to support a Bill being introduced in Parliament by Frank Field, the MP for Birkenhead, on June 20.

Mr Plowman said the marchers had hoped to hold their latest demonstration June 15, but police had asked them to march on the alternative date.

The marchers will go to Parliament Square and then along Whitehall to hand in a petition at 10 Downing Street before gathering to hear speeches.

At present the law offers much greater protection to those members already receiving their pension then to those members who are still working but not yet drawing their pension.

ASW, with plants at Sheerness and Cardiff, went into receivership in July last year. Pensioner members of the scheme received their full pension, but workers and those who had transferred to other firms got just 50 per cent of their pension rights.

The new Bill, supported by Sittingbourne and Sheppey MP Derek Wyatt, will offer protection and compensation to members of pension funds who are still working.

Mr Plowman estimates that the Bill could take two years to become law if it passes through the Parliamentary system successfully.