To the four people sitting in church at a Tampa suburb, coming to the Republican national convention to protest Mitt Romney felt deeply personal, not just political.

For all of them are workers at an Illinois car parts factory whose parent firm Sensata is majority-owned by Bain Capital, the company once run by Romney and in which he still has millions of dollars of investments.

Now their plant in the small town of Freeport is being closed and

shipped piece by piece to China.

They have trained their Chinese replacements, watched colleagues get laid off and by the end of the year they will have lost their jobs too.

They want Romney to know about it. So they have come to Tampa to join protests aimed at highlighting his links to Bain and outsourcing American jobs overseas.

They want to tell their stories and put a human face on the issue.

"I think people can relate to our story," said Cheryl Randecker, 52, as she sat in a chair in a church building that is serving as a "base" for a variety of protest groups in Tampa.

Tom Gaulrapp agreed. He and some other Sensata workers have already been tailing the Romney campaign around the Midwest.

They have pitched up at Romney headquarters in Wisconsin and in Iowa, trying to ask him to use his influence at Bain to save their jobs and stop their factory from being sent overseas.

At Bain's Illinois headquarters they delivered a petition with 35,000 signatures. So far they have had no response from Romney or Bain, but have had the police called to remove

them.

Gaulrapp also tried to speak to Romney at an Iowa rally, standing in the audience and asking him directly if he would come to Freeport and save their jobs.

But he was shouted down by the crowd when he asked a question. "We had people scream at us and call us communists," said Gaulrapp.

Romney has spoken out against outsourcing American jobs overseas and

claimed that his management experience in private enterprise at the head of Bain will help kick-start the economy and create new jobs.

But the Sensata workers from Freeport believe they know different. Bain's involvement in their lives, they say, has ended up with their jobs being shipped out in order to save costs, despite the fact that they say their factory is high-tech and profitable.

So far the Romney campaign has not commented on their plight, only issuing the statement: "Governor Romney is not familiar with this issue and has not been involved in the management of Bain since 1999." Bain has refused any comment.

All put together the four workers in Tampa – which includes Joanne Penniston and Bonnie Borman – have some 96 years of experience working in the soon-to-be-shuttered factory.

They say that sort of expertise is being lost alongside the hurt and pain caused to families suddenly bereft of a decent middle class income. Before they arrived in Tampa a group of neighbours and fellow workers back in Freeport held a "potluck" dinner to send them on their way.

"They wished us well and hoped we could make a change," said Randecker.

They know that is unlikely. A wave of fresh 60-day notice letters just went out at the factory.

At least three of the four expect their own notice letters in the next week or so. But at least telling their story they hope to perhaps stop such events in the future.

"It plays into peoples fears. They see what's happening to us and they fear it can happen to them. If this doesn't stop there won't be any good jobs left in America, not just Freeport," said Gaulrapp.