Workers at the Vestas Wind Turbine factory on the Isle of Wight have JUST NOW occupied their factory. They are fighting for 600 jobs and the future of the planet. They need help now.
PLEASE TEXT AND CALL EVERYONE YOU KNOW.
There is a large picket of support starting outside the factory. This will be crucial in giving people confidence inside. We want hundreds of people by morning.
If you are not working, come now, by car, bus or train.
If you are on the South Coast and working, come for the night and go to work exhausted and proud.
If you can’t come, call up friends and offer to pay the fare or petrol money for someone else to come down. Or part of the fare.
Don’t just call the environmental and union activists you know. Call your friends and ask them who they know. Call your brother’s friends or your children’s friends. Text everyone. Get your friends calling and texting.
WE WANT HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE NOW. SAVE THE JOBS – SAVE THE PLANET.
The workers want Gordon Brown to step in as if it was a troubled bank and save the jobs and keep making wind turbine blades. They gave the bankers trillions. They say they care about climate change. He has talked about creating 40,000 “Green Jobs”, the first step should be protecting these 600.
The workers will need solidarity – donations of money, food and other assistance. In the first instance please send messages of solidarity to savevestas@gmail.com
We will suggest other forms of solidarity soon. Do this now. Reach for your phone.
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How to get there, and more info at:
http://savevestas.wordpress.com/
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A protester claims the 30 demonstrators at a sit-in at the Vestas wind turbine factory on the Isle of Wight have been told they will be sacked.
Danish company Vestas Windsystems plans to make 625 workers redundant at the end of July, despite rising profits.
One of the protesters, who occupied the Newport site on Monday, said managers gave them until 2230 BST on Tuesday to end their action or face the sack.
Vestas said consultation on the site was on-going and would not comment.
The worker, who did not want to be named, said: “We have been told we will be sacked.
“We were given the choice to leave by 2230 BST last night and keep our redundancy package and walk out with no charges.
“Obviously we have stayed in. We didn’t want it to come to this.
“We want the company to explore the possibility of the government taking the site over and improving the redundancy package.”
The campaigners have called on Ed Miliband, the energy and climate change secretary, to travel to the island and speak to them.
Luke, one of the protesters, said: “We’re prepared to stay here for as long as it takes.”
About 200 workers staged a protest outside the factory on Tuesday after being turned away when they arrived for work.
They were also joined by climate change protesters who are supporting them.
Police said Vestas has started legal action to gain an injunction which would remove the protesters.
The company said the factory was being closed next week due to reduced demand for wind turbines in northern Europe
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Update, 22nd July: ARRESTS AT VESTAS + FOOD IN
At 5.10am this morning, a climate activist at the protest outside the Vestas plant attempted to take a bag of food to the occupying workers by means of a rope which the workers had lowered from the balcony. The activist was grabbed by 5 police officers and arrested. On his release he obtained the police report of his arrest, which stated that the reason for his arrest was that, as his bringing food to the occupiers had the stated intention of prolonging the protest, it was facilitating a breach of the peace – clearly ludicrous as the police have themselves admitted that the protest is not breaching the peace.
At 1248, a large number of protestors walked through the line of police holding food in their hands which they threw up to the balcony. The police pushed some of the protestors and attempted to obstruct the line but did not offer substantial resistance. One protestor was harassed by a security guard, and asked a police officer, whose number was 24266, if he intended to do anything about it; the officer said he didn’t. Another protestor saw a police officer grabbing the arm of an activist as he attempted to throw food to the balcony – the activist told the police officer that this constituted harassment, the police officer took no notice.
A second climate activist was arrested and taken through the front doors of the factory. Later, a sergeant whose number was 3027 came out and said that no-one had been arrested for carrying food, but that one activist had been arrested for assault. Other protestors present have commented that as the activist in question, who has not given permission for his name to be released, is a christian pacifist, this seems unlikely.
Security have started putting up a fence around the site, with protestors outside attempting to get a second food-carrying walk-in past the police before its completion. There are currently around 50 protestors outside the factory, over 30 of them Vestas workers, and sources say they expect numbers to increase drastically around 6pm when the protest starts.