ONE hundred and fifty protesters crammed the pavements outside Darwen's Crown Wallcoverings today as ex-employees embarked on a war of words with company bosses.

Bolton Road was awash with tooting cars, signalling their support for the 177 workers made redundant last Tuesday.

Receivers Ernst and Young were brought in on Friday, June 27, and it was revealed that a skeleton staff of 60 workers would continue.

Today, ex-employees, councillors and members of print union, GPMU, turned up to support the workers.

Adrian Taylor, father of the chapel for GPMU at Crown, said: "The way people have been treated is just disgusting and we want to make sure that the rest of the workers that remain here are not treated the same."

Adrian, 35, of Belgrave Road in Darwen, continued: "There was no consultation period and the receivers wouldn't talk to the union. They are in discussions at the moment but they didn't speak to them at the time of the event."

Ex-employees' pensions remain frozen and one week's wages remain unpaid but the union are currently in talks with receivers.

Kevin Nelson, 34, of Radfield Road in Darwen, said: "People have worked here for decades and they treated us terribly. We've all lost redundancy pay and I've lost £10,000. They shouldn't be allowed to get away with it."

Protesters held banners and signs proclaiming 'We deserved better'. In spite of the anger and ill-feeling of ex-employees, the protest remained peaceful for the two hours.

Inspector Graham Ashcroft of Darwen Police, said: "We were told by Crown to expect up to 1000 people and we were told by the union to expect anything between 15 and 200 so we didn't really know what to expect.

"We had between ten and 15 officers. Some were from a divisional support unit in case of trouble."