Vestas wind turbine factory occupied!! Save jobs! Save the planet!

[Cobbles]

any reports from national day of action??

Oooooh I must have missed it - did it actually extend beyond the Isle of Wight?

 

[durruti02]

Oooooh I must have missed it - did it actually extend beyond the Isle of Wight?

yes demos in nottingham sheffiled london stroud amongst others

 

[TAE]

There was a small demo at the Red Funnel ferry terminal in Southampton on Thursday.

 

[durruti02]

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/08/436229.html

 

[durruti02]

http://workersclimateaction.wordpress.com/

 

[durruti02]

http://savevestas.wordpress.com/

 

[durruti02]

update .. the last 4 blades have been removed form Cowes, 11 blades remain at Newport and there is a blockade of the pier, which has allegedly been sabotaged .. all the workers have recieved their redundancy money now except for the 11 who occupied

 

[david dissadent]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/8257315.stm

Workers and protesters occupied cranes in their ongoing blockade of the factory.

 

[nadia]

this was actually in Southampton. The blades are loaded up on the side of a dock in Southampton before being shipped off to the rest of the world. I can see that out the window of where I work (not in today or yesterday). Its quite sad seeing the piles of blades slowly diminsihing. Vestas however did employ people at the docks in southampton as well as having a small factory here which is closing too. In all honesty I think people should be protesting at Red Funnel and Wight Link their huge ferry fares put off anyone investing in the island.

 

[david dissadent]

CENTRAL LONDON Rally, from 12.30pm at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, 3 Whitehall Place, London, SW1A 2AW, organised by PCS activists; and another from 5.30pm also at DECC, organised by Campaign Against Climate Change

Link
There is a protest in support of Vestas workers tomorrow outside the DECC at 3 Whitehall Place. Its during lunch so local workers might have a chance to give a few minutes of support. I believe it is to coincide with a meeting inside conserning Vestas.

I have been told that the current motivation for the action is...

The workers' (sliding scale of) demands are now:

nationalisation, keep producing wind turbine blades on the Isle of Wight
OR
Vestas put the plant up for sale (currently, they plan to mothball it, and come back when the market picks up) so that another (preferably green, worker-friendly) company can use it and employ people
AND/OR
reinstatement for the 11 sacked workers who did the occupation - which actually means they get the redundancy pay they have lost through fighting for their jobs and those of their fellow workers.

I understand Vestas are very hostile to intersted parties buying the facility. Some of the concerns about the technology can be addressed by licensed manufacture.