Seeking In-Vestas in the Future

Our man on the ground at the Isle of Wight Vestas site (well, mostly up a tripod watching for coppers, as it happens) reports that the action to keep the wind turbines in this country is happening now and bodies are needed.

More information is avaiable from the workers' website Tweet

From Our Own Correspondent

An update from James Beecher on events on the Isle of Wight:

I said I was too busy to visit Vestas, but (un) fortunately for me,
the Big Green Gathering was cancelled at the last minute (seemingly a
political decision based on the links to the green movement, in
particular the climate camp).

Instead a few Bicycology people decided to visit the Isle of Wight
protest camp on the 'Magic' mini Roundabout outside the Vestas wind
turbine factory.

'Vestival' as it became known briefly is now a hodge-podge of the
Climate Camp with it's volunteer vegan kitchen, regular consensus
meetings and up-for-it experienced activists, mixed in with a healthy
dose of factionalist lefty groups (Workers Liberty, SWP, Socialist
Party) all doing a stirling effort to put ideological differences
aside and get down to what they do best (usually writing the leaflets,
rather than occupying the roofs of connected factories, but leaflets
are needed too!)

These elements of course combine with a large presense of Vestas
workers, many of whom have joined the RMT since being forced out of
the factory by the management. Unions were banned during there time
working in the factory, so it is a great symbol of defiance for them
to wear orange hi-viz RMT jackets, fly green RMT flags high, and
discuss unions in all their glory and grit.

Many workers joined the RMT becuase they appreciated it's helpful but
non-controlling approach. Many however, including the 6 remaining
occupiers, still feel no need to join a union - they stood up for
themselves anyway, after all, and are organising themselves very
effectively.

Of course, there are a myriad of other people at the demonstration.
There are local teenagers and children, enjoying the music, bands,
face painting and craft workshops that take place (including, the
other night, a bunch of boy racers who showed up to toot there horns
in support). There are local people of all ages in fact, up to a 70
year old man i spoke to yesterday about similar underhand tactics when
Enfield left the island years and years ago to mov e production to
china (then, as now, the workers in britain trained those who would be
given there jobs)

Simon Hughes has visited, and the local lib dem candidate is regularly
in attendance.

There are some notable absentees however. I met two green party
members during my time there, both involved in the Green Left bit. No
Green Party elected representatives have turned up, which means the
workers feel let down by the Green Party, despite their good words on
the subject. Similarly, although the local labour party candidate has
turned out and said helpful thing, Ed Miliband still believes the
fight is over, and he cannot do anything. As Seize the Day sing in
their song they wrote for the occupation, "he can come down here and
support us too" whenever he builds up the courage!
Bob Crow attended court, and spoke at the rallies at the factory early
on, but no other union officials have attended (despite many rank and
file members of unions such as the PCS, Unison, Unite, FBU and others
regularly attending, and bringing their banners).

Dale Vince put out a great press release, and I am hoping to get both
him and David Drew to visit, or at least provide me with a spoken word
recording to take to play to the occupiers and their supporters.
Please consider what you can do.

1. Visit the factory. The atmosphere alone is truly inspiring. Better
even that any climate camp i have been to.
2. Contact anyone in any network you are in who you think could
mobilise support or resources to help.
3. Don't fail to phone Ed Miliband every day and let him know what you
think of the government's environmental credentials
4. Send some money to the redundancy fund for the occupiers (who have
been told they will receive nothing, and will "never work for Vestas
again")
5. Be creative and think of your own solutions to the problem! Order a
wind turbine blade (they *are* 40 meters long though!), Ocuppy your
place of work in solidarity, go on strike, leaflet, get on telly -
whatever you can.

There are days of action called for this saturday and next wednesday.
This is the opportunity many of us have been waiting for to turn
climate change and capitalism around. Please be a part of the
solution!

Photos and more on Indymedia.org.uk, savevestas.wordpress.com, and
ventnor blog (including interviews with me and videos of the seize the
day song)

Love to you all, I have renewed belief that we can win - but we need
to step up to the plate...

James Tweet

Wind Power is Our Mutual Friend

Bob Crow, whose RMT union is representing the workers occupying the Vestas wind turbine factory on the Isle of Wight, asks with understandable frustration why money can be found to keep RBS afloat when the much smaller sum that would be needed to keep this industry of the future in Britain is denied. The answer is simple if unpalatable: the interests of business prevail over those of the people. We might say that capital is dominant and labour discounted.

From a green economics perspective we might look at this in different terms. Our current economy is dominated by money; a green economy would have energy as its central value. If you remove the distorting lens of a capitalist vision the decision to premit the redundancy of skilled workers who produce machinery that can turn moving air into energy is absurd.

It almost makes you join Bob Crow in yearning for the days when there was political direction over vital areas of public life, whether energy, water, or transport. Certainly, many whose own lives have been dedicated to the political freedom of others have looked enviously at the rapid progress towards a sufficiency economy that Cuba made following the ending of cheap oil imports from the Soviet Union. And China seems best placed to shift its economy rapidly towards a low-carbon future precisely because it does not have to worry about selling these changes to a sceptical electorate.

But the answer is not to sign away from our hard-won right to power over our lives, or to return to the days of public ownership and central planning, it is rather to call for ownership and control at the local level. Vestas offers a perfect example of how a mutual future would achieve the advantages of rapid change without the political opposition that arises when people feel they are powerless pawns in another move that is for the benefit of others.

It seems incredible that the market for wind turbines in the UK is too small to keep the plant in production. The reason is the slow rate of agreement on the siting of these desperately needed energy plants because of local planning opposition. Communities will not agree to having windfarms in their 'view' when the profits are extracted and they gain nothing in return. If the turbines are community owned, research indicates that this opposition evaporates.

And if Vestas central - and how strange it feels that the bad guys in this particular story are Scandinavian - has no need of this plant because it is receiving a better 'green new deal' from President Obama, then it should be passed on to the skilled engineeers and lathe-turners who are the heart of the company. Like the workers at Tower Colliery in South Wales, there is no doubt that they will be able to keep the factory going without the dubious skills of managers and money-men.

There are numerous reasons why capitalism is unsustainable but perhaps the most pressing is that, in pitting the interests of labour against those of capital, it slows the process of change. In a time when a rapid transition to a low-carbon economy is essential this could truly be a fatal flaw. As the new Co-operative advert says, the answer really is blowing in the wind. Tweet

Man Armed with Sausage Roll Arrested by Pigs

No, not an indication that her majesty's finest have taken a vegan turn, but rather a sign of the increasingly desperate nature of policing when the political direction of the country is entirely at odds with the well-being of its citizens.

Early evidence that the police are being used to defend the interests of capital (now frequently called 'business') was widespread at the policing of the G20 demonstrations in London in April. Given the shocking amount of public money that had been given to reckless bankers the level of restraint shown by protestors was admirable. The police failed to live up to this standard.

The latest flashpoint in the struggle between the people and the state is on the famously radical Isle of Wight. The Vestas factory near Newport is the country's only producer of wind turbines. Its closure was made public on the same day that the government announced a fivefold increase in the number wind turbines that would be operating in this country. So much for the Green New Deal. Money can be found for the banks but not for manufacturing.

If ever there was an industry that was worth supporting this has to be it. If we have a future at all it clearly belongs to the renewable generators. These are the skills and the products that will be part of our sustainable economy. But yet again hot air has won the day and there is no action to back it up.

The workers have taken affairs into their own hands and reclaimed the factory. They are being supported by protestors who are resupplying them with food, which the police are preventing them from passing on. Hence the sausage roll incident. The Times reports that the arrested man's custody sheet accused him of being 'armed with supplies of food'. Sausage rolls have now been elevated to the status of casus belli. These are the Climate Change Wars and we may have found the 21st century equivalent of the War of Jenkin's Ear.

A full report is available from Indymedia. Tweet