TEN PART-TIME workers are fighting for pension rights after claiming they were discriminated against by their former employers.

Most of the workers - all Kidderminster women - are now retired and without company pensions, a Birmingham employment tribunal was told.

Some of them started working part-time at a Kidderminster factory run by ICI in 1959.

Since then different managements have taken over - including Imperial Metal Industries and later, Royal Ordnance plc, making products for the Ministry of Defence.

Brian Young, of Areley Court, Stourport, who is representing the women, told the tribunal they had been discriminated against as part-time workers and had been excluded from company pension schemes. The women wanted company pensions back dated.

He said pensions for part-time workers were under review in certain circumstances, following an application to the European Court.

Anthony Blakemore, representing Royal Ordnance plc, requested four of the claims be dismissed.

But the tribunal chairman said the parties should reach an agreement over certain facts and figures to enable the tribunal to make a decision at a hearing in July. The fact the women had worked for different managements over the years caused some confusion.

One of the applicants, Veronica Brown, of Habberley Road, Kidderminster, said after the hearing, she had worked as a part-time laboratory technician for 19 years at the Kidderminster plant in Worcester Road but had no company pension.

Another applicant, Margaret Collins, of Burghley Road, Kidderminster, said: "I worked for 11 years as a laboratory technician on a part-time basis, but I am now working full-time".