Vestas Protestors Occupy Crane and Boats in Southampton — update

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