Category: South East England

Activists outside the Vestas factory on the St Cross Business Park, Dodnor Lane, Newport, Isle of Wight have been tipped off that Tuesday 22nd September at 12 noon a ‘Blade Runner’ barge is coming down the river Medina to the Vestas factory from Southampton to pick up some of the remaining blades still inside the factory. Those present expect a big police presence along with big support from other supporters and activists. They claim they are prepared to do anything and everything to stop Vestas from shipping these blades or from getting anything into the factory if that’s their plan.

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.

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22nd September 2009
Early this morning, a large number of Police were in attendance at the riverside gate of the Vestas Blade plant in Newport.

The blockade of protesters, who have been camping on the tow path over the last few weeks, were dispersed by the Police and any unclaimed belongings bagged up and removed.

When we arrived at the site at about 8:30am, fencing was being erected by security staff along the path.

The operation started at about 6:30am when officers issued warnings, under section 69 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, to around 13 people “suspected of having committed, committing, or about to commit, criminal offences of aggravated trespass.”

One protester showed us a map she’d be handed showing an area at the back of the Vestas building. She told VB that she had been instructed not return to the marked area for three months.

Tents, sleeping bags and other items which were not claimed by those present were bagged up and taken to Newport Police Station as lost property.

The media restricted
The footpath is a busy route for cyclists as they travel to Newport.

This morning, cyclists were told to dismount and were then escorted between the newly-erected fences. They were then able to get back on the bikes and continue their journey.

When we approached the line of the police they offered to escort us across the area and back – but only once.

We were told by the PC and then by the Sergeant that if we wanted to cross the path again, we would risk being charged for aggravated trespass.

We pointed out that this restriction on reporting seemed unreasonable, but to no avail.

The Sergeant suggested taking it up with the Police media officer, which we have done.

UPDATE 2 (12:10): Sound like this has been sorted out now. We’ve just heard from the Police media officer that an area has been setup for the media, up on a raised area that we can shot from.

Blades shipping today?
It’s understood that the Bladerunner barge is due to arrive at the riverside at noon and with high tide at 2pm and that Vestas will attempt to ship the final blades and equipment from the factory this afternoon.

Reports about camp eviction and some but not all blades having been moved, at http://savevestas.wordpress.com/

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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!

17th September 2009
This morning seven activists from Climate Rush on the Run decided to pay Jeremy Clarkson a visit.

“Seven of our activists dumped dung on Jeremy Clarkson’s front lawn this morning – he can deal with our emissions since he won’t deal with his!” — Climate Rush on the Run

“I’m the biggest libertarian of them all — I’m dumping dung at Clarkson’s gates so he might understand that his attitude will land us all in the shit.” — Tamsin Omond”
“Jeremy is keen to land us in the shit! So he can have ours … ‘ — Climate Rush on the Run

At a cost to the environment of an estimated 1.7 tonnes of CO2 emissions, petrol head Jeremy Clarkson drove to the Arctic to deliberately antagonise environmentalists.

The Arctic is a fragile environment. CO2 emissions in the Arctic has a disproportionate bad impact. The Arctic is warming much faster than predicted, the ice is melting much faster than predicted.

Temperatures are rising fastest at the poles. The Arctic Ice Sheet is vanishing. Were the Greenland Ice Sheet to melt, sea levels would rise by 17 metres. Many coastal cities, including London, Bangladesh, South Pacific Islands, would not survive these sea levels.

The Arctic is expected to be ice free in the summertime sometime between 2011 and 2015, that is 80 years ahead of what was predicted only a few years ago!

Climate Camp on the Run are wending their way through England from Sipson near Heathrow to Totnes in Devon. They are highlighting and raising awareness of climate change with the occasional direct action against climate criminals.

17 September 2009
Throughout the country today actions are taking place in solidarity with the workers of the Vesta Blades factory on the Isle of Wight. This morning the offices of the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) was targetted by protesters who dropped banners and built a mini windfarm in the lobby. SEEDA is being pressured to withdraw £3m of public money they’ve said they’ll give Vestas for a R&D facility despite the Danish company pulling its manufacturing from the UK. Tonight there will be a protest at the Department of Environment and Climate Change, in Whitehall Place, central London.

PRESS RELEASE – CHATHAM OFFICES IN WIND POWER PROTESTS

SEEDA (South East England Development Agency) offices in Chatham, Kent where today visited by protesters, as part of a national day of action for Vestas wind turbine workers.

Occupying the lobby of the building after hanging banners from the balcony of the top floor, the protesters built a mini wind farm on the development agency’s model of the Medway estuary.

Paper windmills were handed to workers along with a satirical guide on building windmills, which instructed SEEDA to cut up the contracts promising to give Vestas money for nothing.

Pressure is mounting on SEEDA to withdraw the offer of £3 million (part of £10 million of public money being given toVestas by the government) unless the Danish multinational stand aside and allow their closed factory on the Isle of Wight to continue to be used for turbine blade manufacture.

Vestas closed the factory to move production to the U.S. and slashing 600 green UK jobs. The workers then occupied the factory and are demanding that the government nationalise the facilities, the only significant blade manufacturing plant in this country.

“By failing to act on the closure of the Vestas Blades factory, and supporting a return to outdated coal power (like Eon’s Kingsnorth proposal), the Government is showing it currently has no serious commitment to building a low carbon economy or preventing catastrophic runaway climate change.” Anastazja Jarek, Kingsnorth Climate Action Medway
“Vestas workers have fought magnificently to save jobs and essential wind turbine manufacturing in Britain. The government say that Vestas have refused to sell them the factory, yet it is still rewarding Vestas with public money through SEEDA. The government needs to stop pussyfooting around big corporations and take serious action to provide jobs and prevent catastrophic climate change.” – Steve Wilkins, Medway Trades Council

tippingpointmedway@gmail.com

15.09.2009
Blade Runner Protest launched from Power Boat [post-arrest update at bottom]

Using Southampton’s Boat Show as cover, protesters have arrived by power-boat this morning to occupy cranes and vessels at the city’s docks.

Coming from the Vestas factory blockade on the Isle Of Wight, the group aim to prevent the loading of wind-turbine blades from the Newport plant, which was closed in July with the loss of 600 jobs.

“We made these blades, and now Vestas want to take their profits and leave us high and dry,” said ex-Vestas worker Jamie Rigby, who is stationed at the dock entrance, Jamie was one of 11 workers sacked for occupying their factory after Vestas announced the mass lay-off in July. The occupation ended in August after 18 days, and on that occasion Jamie leapt uninjured from a balcony rather than be escorted out by bailiffs.

Jamie is joined today by supporters from the island community, climate activists and workers from the mainland, who have hung banners saying “Wind power to the people” and locked themselves to a crane loading blades onto the BBC Ohio in Empress Dock. Others have occupied the so-called ‘Blade Runner’ Barge which is needed to fetch the remaining blades from the St Cross factory in Newport. They have a banner which reads, “Our blades, Our power”. The barge is visible to the east from the Town Quay, which is also a Red Star Terminal for IOW passengers.

On the crane at Empress Dock, Jackie Sheedy said, “ After the factory occupation ended, Vestas and the government hoped we’d all just quieten down. But we’re united in this blockade. The island workers need those jobs, and we all need them if we want even a chance of combating climate change for our children.”

Speaking by phone from the occupied Blade Runner barge, Robin Sivapalan, a Unison member from the group Workers Climate Action, said “Workers like Jamie were victimised and robbed of their redundancy pay for taking a stand on behalf of all of us,. If Vestas want the blockade lifted, they had better start talking about re-instatement and terms. And if the government want the protests to end they had better drop the greenwash and start taking some real action for a renewable power industry in this country”.

Meanwhile, other sacked Vestas workers are at the TUC conference in Liverpool, lobbying the labour movement for solidarity action and support on Thursdays “National Day of Action”, while

workers from the Lush Cosmetics factory in Poole, Dorset, are taking part in direct action training at the Vestas Marine Gate blockade on the Newport-Cowes cycle path, Newport IOW.

ENDS

Location: BBC Ohio and cranes – Empress Dock, Eastern Docks, Southampton

Blade Runner barge – Opposite Town Quay, (Red Funnel Terminal)

Best view: Blade Runner east from Town Quay;

BBC Ohio and cranes – restricted access through Oceanographic Centre, or by sea/air.

Contacts:

On the Docks protest: Jackie Sheedy, 07944 744922;
Jamie Rigby (sacked Vestas worker), 07875 441668 and Martin Shaw 07950539254 at END OF TOWN QUAY, Southampton.
Robin Sivapalan, 07974 331053

For interview off site: Ian Terry at TUC conference, 07970 739921
Mark Smith at TUC conference, 07980703115
Lush Campaigns Manager: Andrew Butler on 07876 596541

Background:

http://savevestas.wordpress.com
http://ventnorblog.com

Campaign Video including Jamie’s jump: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4CrTEFtSGU

Shipping and Docks info:

http://www.ais-live.co.uk/AIS%20Live/aissolent.html and http://www.abports.co.uk/files/southampton%202008.pdf

workersclimateaction.info@googlemail.com
http://workersclimateaction.wordpress.com

——-

Update: Vestas Crane Activists Charged and Released

16th September 2009 – 3pm

The four Vestas supporters arrested yesterday have just been released after 17 hours of detention in Southampton police station. Originally threatened with arrest under the Terrorism Act they have now been charged with aggravated trespass after spending seven hours locked on to Vestas cranes in Southampton Docks.They have been bailed to return to court on the 29th of September. Their bail conditions include non-association with one another and they have been banned from entering all Vestas sites in Southampton and on the Isle of Wight. One of the activists suffered minor injuries during the traumatic police removal.

The four now intend to press charges against Vestas shipping manager for ordering the two crane drivers to recklessly endanger their lives by turning on both cranes and moving the boom whilst one protester was attached to the moving parts that were then pulled voilently through her arms and legs whilst police watched on and videod the incident.

One of the four, Jacqueline Sheedy said: ”Throughout the action we were peacefully occupying the crane and Vestas arrogance and quest for profits drove them to risk our lives in order to remove us in an attempt to carry on loading the blades as quickly as possible. The behaviour of Vestas management throughout has shown scant regard for the health and safety of their workforce and little sign of humanity in dealing with the closure of the factory. Dock workers in Southampton were calling us during this incident incredulous that this could happen, as did the RMT legal team. We were inundated with messagesof encouragement from workers and activists around the while on the cranes and this is yet more proof that this campaign is far from over and that it is only a small part of what will soon prove to be a much more widespread struggle for workers rights and the environment.”

It has been revealed that the actions have delayed transport of the wind turbine blades to the US by a day, as was intended. However there is little doubt that the blades will eventually be moved due to the lack of demand for wind farms in the UK. We have the components for green energy right here, right now so why are we not using them to full effect?

Vestas workers have been talking about their struggle at the TUC conference happening this week in Liverpool. There is also a national day of action taking place in support of Vestas workers tomorrow, September 17th. The protest will continue untill the demands of the campaign have been met.

For further information please call: 07950 539254 or Jamie ex-vestas occupier:07875441668

For further campaign information see website: savevestas.wordpress.com

On the morning of Thursday 10 September a tripod has now successfully been erected at the marine gate preventing blades from leaving the factory. A worker from the original occupation is currently standing at the top of the tripod as the blockade prepares for an increase in activity on both sides.

10th September 2009, 7am

After more than a week of blockading the Vestas factory in Newport, Isle Of Wight, a tripod has now been erected at the marine gate preventing blades from leaving the factory. A worker from the original occupation is standing on top of the tripod enjoying a stunning view of sunrise over the River Medina.

This inspirational addition to the blockade followed a day of police intimidation that included one arrest and one person being banned from the site after receiving a dispersal order. Blockaders have also had to deal with the confiscation of one tripod before it had been erected and the dismantling of one other blockade. Workers and supporters worked together throughout the night to build the replacement tripod and carry it to the site as the sun rose. Tripod workshops have been held throughout the week as climate activists share skills with Vestas Workers. Other skillshares have included 12 volt solar installations to power the camp’s office in a caravan.

This action comes one week before a national day of action to further highlight the plight of the 600 workers made redundant by this multinational company.

“We the workers see it as our duty to stop our blades from leaving as part of the campaign to nationalize the factory. Vestas have told us that there is no demand for our products but are still unwilling to sell the site to other interested parties. It is clear the government must act on such an important issue as renewable energy production. They should not let our future be dictated solely by profit.’’

‘’We are calling on the government to invest in green jobs on the Isle of Wight and for Vestas to reinstate the eleven sacked workers who occupied the factory.’’

The workers and their supporters call on others to come and join them on the blockades over the coming days as a matter of urgency and to show support on the National Day of Action on 17th September.

PLEASE GET IN TOUCH FOR PHOTOS AND INTERVIEWS

Telephone number for tripod interviews with Vestas worker: 07875 098960 or 07935 868009

Website: Savevestas.wordpress.com

Email: savevestas@gmail.com