cyu
16th July 2009, 08:05
Excerpts from http://thecommune.wordpress.com/2009/07/14/vestas-the-struggle-on-the-horizon/
A factory, the only remaining manufacturer of wind-farm turbines in the UK, is due to be closed by its owners, Vestas, who are making all 500 workers redundant.
Workers are now discussing occupying one of the two sites on the Isle of White, and need the support of workers and climate change campaigners everywhere.
Despite dictatorial management and unsafe working conditions, Vestas workers have never been organised in a union. But when Workers Climate Action activists heard of the planned closure it was mid June, and the spectre of the Visteon occupations still loomed large. Would it be possible to encourage Vestas workers to draw lessons from the struggles at Visteon? Would it be possible to encourage these workers to take similarly militant action?
Workers Climate Action members made contacts on the island through union networks and using the internet. They travelled to the island, and begun to talk to workers outside factory gates, finding bitterness, but resignation. Slowly, they began to agitate and gather contacts, built a meeting in conjunction with the trades council, and are living on the island, cooperating with groups of workers who are now considering an occupation.
------------------
Excerpts from http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2009/07/07/vestas-workers-%E2%80%93-fight
On Friday 3 July, Workers’ Climate Action and the Cowes Trades Council held a public meeting attended by around 100 people, to oppose the closure of the Vestas plant, Britain’s only wind turbine factory, on the Isle of Wight.
The room was packed with workers from the factory, as well as people from the wider community. By the end of the meeting, there were people seriously discussing the tactic of a factory occupation to save jobs and force much-needed investment in wind energy.
The Isle of Wight is, for the most part, staunchly Conservative, with very little history of class struggle or environmentalism. It has one Labour councillor, no branch of any left group, and an apparently inactive Green Party branch.
A small number of activists from Workers’ Liberty heard the news of the closure and began getting in touch with people on the Island three weeks ago. We managed in touch with a few local trade unionists from the Trades Council. Most of these turned out to be past retirement age, but many with militant histories.
As impressed as these old heads of the labour movement were and as glad as they were to see a bunch of energetic young people having come down to set up a campaign, no one expected it to go anywhere. The wisdom was that this was a workplace that had never been unionised, the closure had been announced, the ball was in motion; we should try by all means but we shouldn’t get too disappointed if we got nowhere.
Despite this, we went out and simply stood outside the factory waiting for people to come out of work. Our only leaflets was the basic Workers' Climate Action ‘Climate Change is a Class Issue’ one. As the workers went past we got chatting, heard stories of people having to move house as a result of the redundancies and various attempts over the years to get trade union recognition met with victimisations and sackings.
People felt betrayed. Many are young, many had thought that this was an industry with a future, many genuinely felt they were doing their bit to save the planet. All this was down the drain.
We mobilised a small but diverse group of Workers’ Climate Action activists (environmentalists, socialists, and anarchists) from across the country to come down.
We succeeded in talking to the local media, including BBC radio Solent, the Isle of Wight County press, and Meridian News, and we were able to voice ideas like the just transition to a low carbon economy and democratic workers’ control of industry in forums where they had not been heard in a long time.
Using contacts made during the Visteon occupation, we persuaded the former convenor of the Enfield Visteon plant, Ron Clarke, to speak at the public meeting. Ron spoke about the experience and the tactics of occupation
many of the speakers brought to the public meeting by the local Trades Council revealed themselves to be bureaucrats. They told workers to simply join UNITE and get official recognition, but were disdainful about the idea of occupation. These business unionists and social partnership bureaucrats brought little to the campaign, but they certainly alienated a lot of workers with their elitist talk of letters written to ‘Lord Mandelson’.
A factory, the only remaining manufacturer of wind-farm turbines in the UK, is due to be closed by its owners, Vestas, who are making all 500 workers redundant.
Workers are now discussing occupying one of the two sites on the Isle of White, and need the support of workers and climate change campaigners everywhere.
Despite dictatorial management and unsafe working conditions, Vestas workers have never been organised in a union. But when Workers Climate Action activists heard of the planned closure it was mid June, and the spectre of the Visteon occupations still loomed large. Would it be possible to encourage Vestas workers to draw lessons from the struggles at Visteon? Would it be possible to encourage these workers to take similarly militant action?
Workers Climate Action members made contacts on the island through union networks and using the internet. They travelled to the island, and begun to talk to workers outside factory gates, finding bitterness, but resignation. Slowly, they began to agitate and gather contacts, built a meeting in conjunction with the trades council, and are living on the island, cooperating with groups of workers who are now considering an occupation.
------------------
Excerpts from http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2009/07/07/vestas-workers-%E2%80%93-fight
On Friday 3 July, Workers’ Climate Action and the Cowes Trades Council held a public meeting attended by around 100 people, to oppose the closure of the Vestas plant, Britain’s only wind turbine factory, on the Isle of Wight.
The room was packed with workers from the factory, as well as people from the wider community. By the end of the meeting, there were people seriously discussing the tactic of a factory occupation to save jobs and force much-needed investment in wind energy.
The Isle of Wight is, for the most part, staunchly Conservative, with very little history of class struggle or environmentalism. It has one Labour councillor, no branch of any left group, and an apparently inactive Green Party branch.
A small number of activists from Workers’ Liberty heard the news of the closure and began getting in touch with people on the Island three weeks ago. We managed in touch with a few local trade unionists from the Trades Council. Most of these turned out to be past retirement age, but many with militant histories.
As impressed as these old heads of the labour movement were and as glad as they were to see a bunch of energetic young people having come down to set up a campaign, no one expected it to go anywhere. The wisdom was that this was a workplace that had never been unionised, the closure had been announced, the ball was in motion; we should try by all means but we shouldn’t get too disappointed if we got nowhere.
Despite this, we went out and simply stood outside the factory waiting for people to come out of work. Our only leaflets was the basic Workers' Climate Action ‘Climate Change is a Class Issue’ one. As the workers went past we got chatting, heard stories of people having to move house as a result of the redundancies and various attempts over the years to get trade union recognition met with victimisations and sackings.
People felt betrayed. Many are young, many had thought that this was an industry with a future, many genuinely felt they were doing their bit to save the planet. All this was down the drain.
We mobilised a small but diverse group of Workers’ Climate Action activists (environmentalists, socialists, and anarchists) from across the country to come down.
We succeeded in talking to the local media, including BBC radio Solent, the Isle of Wight County press, and Meridian News, and we were able to voice ideas like the just transition to a low carbon economy and democratic workers’ control of industry in forums where they had not been heard in a long time.
Using contacts made during the Visteon occupation, we persuaded the former convenor of the Enfield Visteon plant, Ron Clarke, to speak at the public meeting. Ron spoke about the experience and the tactics of occupation
many of the speakers brought to the public meeting by the local Trades Council revealed themselves to be bureaucrats. They told workers to simply join UNITE and get official recognition, but were disdainful about the idea of occupation. These business unionists and social partnership bureaucrats brought little to the campaign, but they certainly alienated a lot of workers with their elitist talk of letters written to ‘Lord Mandelson’.