London Rally Supports Vestas Workers — 6 Aug

The Cam­paign Against Cli­mate change held a ral­ly in Lon­don on Thurs­day 6 August in sup­port of the 600 Ves­tas work­ers whose jobs mak­ing wind tur­bine blades are to be lost as the com­pa­ny moves pro­duc­tion to the USA.

London Rally in solidarity with Vestas workersThe Cam­paign Against Cli­mate change held a ral­ly in Lon­don on Thurs­day 6 August in sup­port of the 600 Ves­tas work­ers whose jobs mak­ing wind tur­bine blades are to be lost as the com­pa­ny moves pro­duc­tion to the USA.

The ral­ly out­side the Depart­ment of Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change in White­hall on Thurs­day evening start­ed in light rain, but it was pour­ing by the time it fin­ished. Despite the weath­er, the 80 or so present lis­tened intent­ly to speech­es from a Ves­tas work­er, trade union speak­ers from the RMT, PCW and Bil­ly Hayes of the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers Union, as well as for­mer Labour Sec­re­tary of State for the Envi­ron­ment Michael Meach­er MP and Green Par­ty GLA mem­ber Jen­ny Jones, who arrived at the event by bicy­cle.

Despite the gov­ern­ment hav­ing spent thou­sands of bil­lions prop­ping up the banks it is unwill­ing to put up the much small­er amounts need­ed to sup­port green indus­tries. The prob­lems of Ves­tas are indeed very much of the Gov­ern­men­t’s mak­ing, with its fail­ure to put it’s mon­ey where its mouth is on green ener­gy poli­cies, rely­ing on hot air rather than sup­port for wind pow­er and oth­er alter­na­tive ener­gies.

Mak­ing wind tur­bines is a prof­itable busi­ness, and will become even more so, but unless action is tak­en — such as nation­al­is­ing Ves­tas, at least (as with the banks) on a tem­po­rary basis, the UK will be buy­ing them from abroad rather than mak­ing mon­ey sell­ing them to the rest of the world.

This sto­ry is also on Demotix, and I’ll put more pic­tures on My Lon­don Diary next week:
http://mylondondiary.co.uk/2009/08/aug.htm