WORKERS at a Government file store in Nelson, which employs more than 100 people, vowed today to continue their fight against privatisation plans.

Members of the Prospect union are renewing their appeal to MPs to support them and preparing updated briefings to send to politicians nationwide.

The Department for Work and Pensions is responsible for the Schofield Mill store, which is one of 40 in the country holding 85million records containing sensitive information.

Prospect representative Mark Pain said: "People feel very bitter because this threat is just hanging over their jobs.

"There are always rumours that we might be closed and people also fear their terms and conditions might be affected.

"But it's more than that really because we hold very personal information about people and nobody wants to see that in the hands of private companies.

"The work of the DWP affects everybody at some time or another so this is an issue everyone should be interested in.

"We want to carry on raising awareness among MPs because we have not accepted that this will happen at all. We will continue to fight it and we will be prepared to take action."

Pendle MP Gordon Prentice has backed the workers' campaign and he visited the site in February to talk to management about the threat of closure.

He said: "The Government is aware of my concerns and I spoke to a colleague last week who had visited a privatised file store and was shocked at the way the records were handled.

"My view is if it ain't broke, why fix it, and I have made it clear that the service provided here in Nelson, and at other sites, is pretty good. The ball is now in the minister's court to decide what happens."

A spokesman for the DWP said: "Work is continuing on the project. It's planned to issue an invitation to tender to shortlisted bidders shortly and there are active plans being developed to handle personnel issues arising as a result of the decision to extend private sector involvement in DWP records storage and retrieval work."