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Dawn at Vestas Blade Blockade

PeterPannier | 21.09.2009 10:46 | Climate Chaos | Energy Crisis | Workers' Movements | South Coast | World

The Blade Blockade at the (once Occupied) Vestas Wind Turbine Blade Factory at the St Cross Business Park, Dodnor Lane, Newport, Isle of Wight was served a letter before claim type notice of eviction from WIGGUN solicitors the other day. We took some nice photos of the dawn the day after to encourage people to visit (on yer way to Calais, natch). Climbers, cooks and nocturnal creatures particularly warmly welcomed. The fires are still burning!

Dawn over the River Medina at Low Tide (no chance of a barge taking the blades)
Dawn over the River Medina at Low Tide (no chance of a barge taking the blades)

Dawn Sun (good for yer Vitamin D, apparas)
Dawn Sun (good for yer Vitamin D, apparas)

Site is on wooded cycle path (should that be psychopath?)
Site is on wooded cycle path (should that be psychopath?)

The Camp, placards etc
The Camp, placards etc

Fancy a cuppa? An offer to all who pass / see this...
Fancy a cuppa? An offer to all who pass / see this...


The new Marine Gate (/'Magic Swings') camp is a very beautiful place to wake up / not go to bed! Riverside views, from a Penthouse Tripod for those with strong arms and no sense of vertigo. In the shadow of a mighty Oak, and situated along the Newport-Cowes cyclepath - a fine stretch of Sustrans, wooded, snaking along the river, a mermaid statue and solar powered lights to guide you...

Fireside chats into the night are full of inspiration. Nearby skips magically produce goods wished for, while pixies frolic in the moonless nights. There are field kitchens at both camps, but the Magic Roundabout houses the 'Roundabout 8 Restaurant' - so called because voluntary vegan donation dinner is served, around about eight pm (turn up at six to be assured a place at the table, bring your favourite ingredients if you want can't cook won't cook fun).

Get yourselves down and get involved. We can win this campaign and have a worker controlled renewables factory for 600 workers if we pull our fingers out!

(and it's sort of on the way / the way back from Calais. ~£30 with railcard for trip from london to ryde, hitching to newport fairly easy. new greyhound coaches as cheap as £1 to portsmouth and southampton. hovercraft portsmouth to ryde can be only £4, fastcat is £7 with a railcard).

there are space tents, and even the odd spare sleeping bag.

PeterPannier
- e-mail: stroud@bicycology.org.uk
- Homepage: http://bicycology.org.uk

Additions

Press Release - feel free to edit and send to your local paper...

21.09.2009 12:16

Climb Every Tripod
Climb Every Tripod

£70 grand Job..
£70 grand Job..

Local Activists Supports Vestas Workers in their bid to save Jobs & Planet

Photos from Thursday 17th September - National Day of Action in Solidarity with Vestas Workers
see: savevestas.wordpress.com for more information, photos, etc.

Having taken up the offer to attend 'Vestival' as an alternative event when the Big Green Gathering was cancelled earlier this summer, local activist George Hill has been regularly visiting the Isle of Wight to support the campaign there to save 600 jobs and contribute to the effort to save the planet by keeping open the only significant factory producing wind turbine blades in the UK.

Attending during the past week, George joined in the recently established 'Blade Blockade' - climbing a 20 foot scaffold pole tripod to prevent 9 blades (3 turbines or £750,000 worth) from leaving the factory, to be taken to America via Southampton. This is a key piece of leverage the workers have to negotiate with the company and the Government.

11 workers were fired by the company for Occupying it in a effort to save their jobs. One of the workers has become homeless, and he and others are now living with activists at one of two camps outside the factory. They have continued to take direct action - earlier this week one occupied the crane that loads the blades onto boats bound for the USA, while others received a standing ovation during Ed Miliband's speech to the TUC when the unfurled a banned proclaiming 'Nationalise Vestas Now!'

To 'reinstate' these 11 workers and pay them the same redundancy package paid to the other workers who lost their jobs in August would cost Vestas a mere £45,000. Meanwhile, the campaign has discovered that the company planned to pay Manager Paddy Weir a special £70,000 bonus for ensuring a 'clean closure' of the factory. Despite efforts to deliver the chque personally, activists believe Vestas are unlikely to be paying Mr Weir this money, and therefore know that Vestas can easily afford Reinstatement.

However, Vestas are a greedy multinational with little concern for their workers - the 11 workers were fired by a note delivered in a Pizza box, after days of a "starve them out" policy originally pursued by the company in response to the occupation . The redundancy packages are generally small, and many workers were not yet eligible for them having worked for the company for less that 18 months.

We at the Blockade and 'Magic Roundabout' camp at the factory entrance are campaigning for three things:

1. Reinstatement of the sacked workers and an improved Redundancy package for all Vestas workers
2. Keep the Blades built in the UK in the UK - install them here. Keep the St Cross business park factory open - through Nationalisation if necessary.
3. The Government must produce a detailed and realistic Energy Strategy centered around Renewable Energy built in the UK.

George said: "The Vestas workers are Heroes for standing up for their rights as workers, and for standing up for the environment. But they are just ordinary people who did what they felt was right. We all need to follow their example if we are going to see a sustainable and beautiful future for ourselves and the next generation. We can't rely on politicians - particularly the withering Gordon Brown, Ed Miliband and Peter Mandelson - to go beyond hot air and actually do something about Climate Change - we need to get on with it ourselves. We need Wind Turbines in the UK, and it makes economic and environmental sense to produce them in the UK. I hope we can see Blades built on the Isle of Wight installed by Ecotricity in the Severn Vale, and I hope Stroudies will support the Vestas campaign and visit the camp. Look up Save Vestas on the internet."

George Hill
- Homepage: http://savevestas.wordpress.com