VICTIMS of the collapsed APW pension scheme are to take their battle for justice to Parliament.

At least 40 employees, along with trade union representatives, will stage a public protest outside the House of Commons next Monday.

It has been carefully timed to coincide with a political debate on the controversial issue of pensions.

Pensions minister Malcolm Wicks is expected to field thorny questions from regional MPs appalled at the way 1,260 scheme members have been treated by American-owned APW.

As extensively reported by the Daily Echo, most of them have lost 80 per cent of their pensions after the scheme was wound up in the High Court to keep the company - employing 285 people at Chandler's Ford - from going under.

APW, which makes electronic enclosures for the global market, argued that it could not afford to pay in £15m over the next ten years to shrink a £55m hole in the pension fund, which was set up in 1957 by then British company Vero.

But APW, which broke even last summer after being in the red for years, caused widespread anger with the legal move.

Last month local MPs met up with Mr Wicks to highlight the case, and are pressing for adequate compensation. APW victims are currently excluded from financial assistance because the company is not insolvent.

In one of the worst examples ex-worker George Dunford, from Southampton, lost a £25,000 lump sum he was due to collect on his 65th birthday four weeks ago, along with four-fifths of his £7,000 pension.

Last week, New Forest East MP Julian Lewis accused APW, under the protection of parliamentary privilege, of "blackmailing" workers into accepting a massive reduction in pension on pain of the company going into liquidation.

APW refuted that, saying Mr Lewis's suggestion was a "grave injustice".

The TGWU union, which has 150 members at the APW site in Chandler's Ford, is organising next Monday's public lobby in London against the backdrop of pension unrest.

TGWU district secretary Jennie Formby said: "We are trying to persuade the government to amend the Pensions Bill so that it provides guaranteed protection for APW workers and all workers like them."

The union was also due to enlist the support of the APW pensions action group, which was formed by scheme members in the wake of the crisis.