The environment

From Monday evening (20th) to Wednesday (22nd), the police were aggressive and very markedly on the side of Vestas bosses. They were especially hostile on Monday evening, but the aggressiveness continued for a couple of days. In one stand-off, they confronted Vestas worker Doug Green and told him that if he took one step further towards his own workplace, they would arrest him for “breach of the peace” and confiscate the food he was trying to take to the occupiers. Doug stayed put where he was, defying the police, for four hours. Some supporters were arrested for “breach of the peace”, the...

The workers’ occupation at the Vestas wind turbine blade factory at Newport, Isle of Wight, is the centre of three great battles: on jobs, on the environment, and on renovating the labour movement. Workers occupied the factory on Monday 20 July to stop the bosses’ plans to shut the factory. Vestas bosses and police have been able to stop all but a few extra workers entering the factory to join the occupation, but hundreds of other workers and supporters have gathered outside the factory entrance to support the occupiers and demand the nationalisation of the factory to save jobs. Vestas bosses...

I’ve been thinking about solidarity activism around Vestas, after experiencing and talking about recent disputes like the tube cleaners, Visteon, SOAS occupation; comparing student occupations, workers occupations and things like climate camp, learning about some of the history of working-class direct action. Every group and individual seems to come at these struggles with differing ideas of what solidarity means and looks like, or as we often put it, “how solidarity can change the world”. I spent a good part of last year developing the WCA [Workers' Climate Action] network; what’s at stake in...

One of the first AWL activists to start activity around the Vestas wind turbine factory closures looks back over six weeks of campaigning. I remember first hearing about Vestas at the Workers’ Liberty conference back in May. Some comrades in student and youth fraction told us about a wind turbine factory on the Isle of Wight which was being shut down and we decided that someone should go down to make contacts and see what, if anything, could be done in terms of organising a fightback. A shortened version of this diary is published in Solidarity 3/156. Why did we decide this? Well, in the first...

At the hearing in Newport, IoW, on 29 July, the judge refused to grant Vestas a "possession order" for the occupied factory, and adjourned the case to 4 August.

The BBC is reporting that Vestas management have sacked the 11 workers involved in the occupation that they have so far been able to identify. After coordinating a police blockade to prevent any food from getting to the occupying workers, Vestas management eventually relented and have been delivering food (initially only cold, pre-packaged food in insufficient quantities) to the workers. Tonight, dismissal letters were delivered with the evening pizza. Mike, an occupying worker, said "it's not going to deter us and we're not going to leave. We're not doing this for us now, we're doing this for...

Ed Maltby, for Workers' Climate Action , responds to Energy Minister Ed Miliband's excuses and evasions about the Vestas wind turbine blade factories in the Isle of Wight. This also appears in the Guardian . Ed Miliband’s letter to the Guardian is a sorry attempt to excuse the irresponsible behaviour of Vestas management in closing the Isle of Wight plants. It seems that Miliband and his government are more prepared to defend the interests of big business than to solve the problem of climate change and keeping people in work. Miliband makes Vestas CEO Ditlev Engel’s arguments for him: that...

The workers' occupation, since 20 July, at the Vestas wind turbine factory at Newport, Isle of Wight, is the centre for now of both the fight for jobs and the fight for a sustainable future for the planet. Read more about it: All Vestas stories on this website Basic background article Save Vestas jobs campaign website Further reading on workplace occupations, workers' control and the idea of a 'workers' government' What you can do Come to the protest outside the Vestas factory - Monks Brook, St Cross Industrial Estate, Newport, Isle of Wight. Send messages of support from yourself or your...

AWL bulletin #2 for the campaign to save jobs at the Vestas wind turbine blade factories in the Isle of Wight. Download pdf (see "attachment", below).

Energy minister Ed Miliband has announced new government finance for wind-turbine construction, and extra public funds for the Vestas wind turbine company for investment. According to the Guardian, Miliband says that all this is not intended to keep the Vestas wind turbine blade factories in the Isle of Wight - Britain's only such factories - open, but the announcement suggests he is under pressure. The Guardian also reports Vestas as saying that "no final decision" about the factories will be made until 31 July. The St Cross (Newport) factory has been occupied since Monday 20 July. Workers...