A group of hardy would-be pensioners who were stripped of their retirement benefits when their employers went bust marked the start of the Labour Party conference today by stripping on a chilly Brighton beach.

It was the fifth year in a row that the Pensions Action Group had staged the Full Monty-style protest at the Labour conference to highlight the plight of some 80,000 people from 400 separate companies who have lost their pensions because their pension schemes were wound up.

Roger Day, 62, from Hemel Hempstead, was one of ten men who stripped down to their boxer shorts on the promenade opposite the conference, before running down the famous pebbles and posing behind a banner reading: "2005 And Still Stripped Of Our Pensions".

Mr Day worked for Dexion, a storage systems manufacturer that went into liquidation because of a pension fund shortfall two years ago. After paying pension contributions for 36 years, he was left without any pension at all and has had to delay his retirement and find work as a van-driver. Instead of the £18,000 a year Mr Day should have been paid when he retired at 62, he will get at most £12,000 a year, with no indexation, from the age of 65 under the Government’s Financial Assistance Scheme.

Shivering in the cold wind, he told Times Online: "I paid into a pension scheme for 36 years because I thought I would then be self-sufficient and could look after my family. But I lost it all."

He added: "It’s the Government’s responsibility but they don’t listen. It wouldn’t take too much initiative to top the scheme up. They seem to have loads of money for fighting poverty abroad, but they don’t care when it’s here at home."

The pensioners a march from Brighton Pier, and an open-top bus tour around the city. The protest came before an address to conference by David Blunkett, the Work and Pensions Secretary, who promised delegates that the Government was keen to use the FAS to help those "scandalously" let down by their employers.

"Today we face the challenge of getting that right, but we also face the challenge of making sure that it doesn’t happen again," Mr Blunkett said.

The Pensions Action Group is hoping that this year Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, will finally heed their argument. Although the Government has established the Pension Protection Fund to help to safeguard workers' pensions when companies get into financial difficulties, the group - like other pensions protestors - has complained that the fund will only act in future crises, and will do nothing about schemes that have already closed. The fund, set at about £400 million, has also been criticised for being too small.

Business organisations have urged the government to consider radical reform to the pensions system. The CBI wants the Government to increase the retirement age for public sector workers to 65, and has argued that the structure of state benefits needs to be rethought in order to make retirement payments more manageable for companies.

The Institute of Directors believes that the retirement age across the board should be lifted to 70, and has argued that means testing for benefits needs to be scrapped.

The National Association of Pension Funds, a leading lobby group for stock market investors, argued last week that the retirement age may have to be increased to 69 in order to fund a fair basic state pension.

Also protesting this afternoon was Roger Washford, 58, who lost his job and 22 years of pension contributions – including some made under a previous employer – when steelworks ASW went bust in Sheerness.

When the pensions scheme was wound up Mr Washford was too far down the pecking order to receive any funds, and he stands to get nothing under the FAS either, because he was under 58 when he lost his job.

"We get a lot of sympathy but as soon as you start asking for money, they stop listening," Mr Washford said. "I suppose they think that there are other priorities – dare I say it, the war in Iraq – but there are 80,000 people out there who have lost their pensions."

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