Public and Commercial Services Union

Save Vestas wind turbine factories

Tuesday 27 October: On 15 October a delegation from the Isle of Wight met with Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Miliband to discuss green jobs on the Isle of Wight.

Former Vestas workers were not invited – a bit of an insult considering the meeting would not have taken place without the workers’ campaign!

Newport IOW Councillor Geoff Lumley called for action to support the island’s social and economic regeneration following the job losses at Vestas Blades.

Councillor Lumley said Ed Miliband is clearly keen to get alternative green jobs onto the Island and that the government would urgently look into development of tidal energy in the Solent, and a scheme for ‘rotawave’ technology - potentially delivering at least 300 island jobs.

The Secretary of State for Climate Change also told the contingent that he’s keen to be kept in the picture about possible offshore blade production -  an opportunity with the potential for 1000 jobs.

At the end of August Vestas started shipping wind turbine blades to the USA. Vestas workers and campaigners tried to prevent the blades from being moved until their demands from the government and Vestas management are met - reinstatement of the occupying workers who were sacked with full redundancy pay and the government taking wind energy production under public owenership.  

Vestas have now removed all the blades though a blade testing rig remains.

The sacked workers are making claims for unfair dismissal. Vestas paid outstanding wages and redundancy money to workers made redundant after the occupation ended in mid August. There have been constant pickets ever since at the factory gates at the Newport site. Solidarity with the Vestas workers is spreading with new support groups being set up around the country. Contact details are on the Save Vestas website.

President of Vestas Blades Ole Borup Jakobsen has said it was a "commercial decision"  to close the plants to secure Vestas' competiveness and cited UK planning laws as one of the reasons Vestas plans to move production to the US.  See the Guardian website for the full story.

Vestas said there is a lack of demand in the UK for the type of onshore wind turbine blades they make and it's cheaper to produce them in the US where there is a market for them.

This comes at a time when we need a huge expansion in renewable energy. The government has promised to create 400,000 green jobs over the next five years - the first step would be to save the 600 jobs at Vestas.

Vestas originally planned to close the plants at the end of July but wrote to the workers confirming that the consultation period had been extended to 10 August.

The RMT, which now represents many of the Vestas workers, says the campaign to save wind turbine manufacture in England is far from over and is leading a campaign to get the workers involved in the three week occupation, which ended on 7 August after Vestas obtained a possession order to remove them, reinstated.

On Thursday 6 August the government met with Vestas workers and Jonathan Neale from the campaign against climate change. Climate change minister Joan Ruddock said the government had offered the company money and any assistance they could, but it had been refused, as the company did not want to sell.She said the government was not taking any further action to prevent the closure of the plants and would not consider nationalisation. This is despite claiming: ‘We do agree on the general point of keeping manufacturing jobs in the UK.’

A letter published in The Guardian on 4 August, signed by 16 union leaders including PCS assistant general secretary Chris Baugh who visited the Isle of Wight during the occupation, called on Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Miliband to intervene to save Vestas. See the press release for more information.

The occupation not only attracted support from trade unionists - including support nationally from PCS and RMT and the TUC - green groups such as Greenpeace and the Green Party in the UK; messages of support continue to flow in from around the world.

The Save Vestas campaign is asking people send messages of support (see below), spread the word, and make a donation. Funds are urgently needed.

There is more information on the Save Vestas campaign website.