Representatives from the Bootle plant will be joined by Unite representatives and a host of unions from around the world, to protest outside the Grand Hotel tomorrow (25 April).

Employees are protesting at the closure of the plant, which the union claims was done illegally, resulting in 140 redundancies, which came after a five-week stand-off between the company and employees after management locked staff out of the site in February.

Unite has been trying to gain attention for the employees' plight over the last few weeks, including an appearance at the Grand National.

Unite national officer Ian Tonks said that the shareholders attending this week's meeting would have to "run a gauntlet of angry workers".

He said: "Vienna is a beautiful city but what MMP has done to its UK workers is simply ugly. They may have hoped we would have gone away, but MMP has got that very wrong.

"We will not stay silent. We will shout at every MMP meeting, to every MMP client and at every MMP workforce until this company corrects this appalling mistreatment. MMP has brought shame on Austria's name. With no negotiation and no proper redundancy procedure, the illegal closure of the Bootle site is a disgrace.

"MMP shareholders should take note. We will fight this fight for as long as it takes.  We will shout from the rooftops about how abysmally this Austrian company has treated UK workers. We urge MMP shareholders to use their influence to instruct senior management to talk to Unite now and get this loyal workforce back to work."

Bootle employees will be joined by colleagues from MMP sites in France, Spain, Austria, Germany, Tunisia and Austria's largest union GPA.