Skip Nav | Home | Mobile | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Security | Support Us

World

Get down to Vestas - Occupy, Camp, Resist, Cook, Produce!

George Hill | 27.09.2009 20:50 | Climate Chaos | Energy Crisis | Workers' Movements | South Coast | World

There has been a camp outside the Vestas factory on the St. Cross Business Park, Dodnor Lane, Newport, Isle of Wight, since at least the beginning of the Occupation of the factory on 20th July this year. The camp has a well established kitchen run by volunteers who serve quality vegan evening meals 'Roundabout 8', with lunch and breakfast also provided and sometimes cooked too. Those who occupied the factory are often present, together with climate campers and those from assorted lefty groups and unions. Get down there and join 'em! ...and take some cake with ya!












Also at the camp is a caravan serving as a site/campaign office, a standpipe for freshwater, a chemical toilet, a bike-powered smoothie maker (in bits), a fair amount of solar capacity and salvaged sealed lead acid batteries providing the bare minimum of power to charge radios, phones and a laptop. There's a recently erected marquee, and a 'living room' of sorts, with comfy chairs and an ever-burnin' oil-drum brazier. There are even spare tents and sleeping bags rescued from being sent to landfill post-Bestival. The weather is generally better than the mainland, the ferry trip is expensive but beautiful and exciting. The locals and welcoming and supportive of the campaign, and the island is full of beautiful countryside including plenty of Mighty Oak trees.

The three main aims of the campaign and camp are to achieve:

1. Full reinstatement of the 11 workers sacked for occupying their factory in an attempt to save the jobs of 600 employed there - these workers have still not been paid any redundancy though to pay them equivalent redundancy to the other workers would cost Vestas a tiny £45,000. The workers are also campaigning for a better redundancy package for all workers.

2. Wind turbine production on the Isle of Wight. If Vestas want to shut the factory, they must sell it. If no buyers come forward, the facility should be nationalised and placed under worker's control. Caroline Lucas has put forward a proposal for the factory to be run as a Workers' Coop to the local council under the Sustainable Communities Act. A female ex-worker has also put together a business plan based on such an idea.

3. Serious Government policies and plans regarding the promotion of industry producing renewable energy equipment, and for renewables to provide the required share of national electricity in the UK. The St. Cross site was the UK's largest renewable's facility and for the Government to allow it to close as they speak loftily of Copenhagen and 1 million new green jobs is hypocrisy of the highest order.

This is a great campaign, not only because of the clear justice of the aims, but because it is a positive campaign (rare in the Climate and Labour movements), because it is a winnable campaign, because it is a radical campaign, a campaign that has used Direct Action from the start, because it is a campaign with huge local, national and international support, and with huge significance, and huge capacity to inspire further actions.

Those of you who know about the Occupied Factory Movement in Argentina following the December 2001 economic collapse there should know that Vestas is our Zanon, our Brukman - we need to devote energy to this campaign.

Those of you who don't know about the Argentine Movement should seek out Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis' film 'The Take' or look up the slogans 'Occupy, Resist, Produce' and 'Que Se Vayan Todos' on the net...

There have been arrests recently and an eviction of a 2nd blockade camp by 120 mainland police at 6.30 am one day last week.

Support in the form of donations, visits (however short) and solidarity actions is warmly received!

see: savevestas.wordpress.com for more info, and irregular updates!

George Hill
- e-mail: stroud@bicycology.org.uk
- Homepage: http://savevestas.wordpress.com

Comments

Display the following 5 comments

  1. Zanon, Brukman... — A
  2. I can't remember a campaign with more public support — Jock Strap
  3. I can't remember a campaign with more public support — Jock Strap
  4. Support — A
  5. would be great to get some activists workers back in there to make blades — james

Publish

Publish your news

Do you need help with publishing?

/regional publish include --> /regional search include -->

World Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech