SUPPORT THE VESTAS WORKERS! PUBLIC MEETING: THIS THURSDAY

Come and find out about the inspiring battles that workers are undertaking against
the unjustified attacks on jobs, pay and conditions. With a speaker from the Vestas
workers' committee plus contributions from the Visteon car parts plant occupation,
Brighton bin workers/street cleaners’ in dispute with the council and Brighton
Housing Trust workers fighting to defend their pay and their jobs.

Meet 7.30pm Thursday 24 September
Friend's Meeting House, Brighton

For more information on the Vestas workers' battle click here...

Brighton solidarity with Vestas workers

Socialist Party members campaigning with the Brighton Vestas Workers Support Group

Brighton members of the Socialist Party have been out and about with other trade unionists and campaigners doing local stalls and leafleting to raise awareness of the campaign the Vestas workers continue to fight. A support group in Brighton is now organising activities and events. If you'd like more information about how to get involved email us at info.bhsp@gmail.com or join the support group online at brightonvestassupporters@gmail.com.

VESTAS NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION!

Wednesday 12 August
12-2pm: leafleting/collecting in Churchill Square
6pm: street meeting in Churchill Square

Come along and take part in the local solidarity action in Brighton to support the workers at Vestas. With events taking place right across the country and abroad, workers young and old, trade unionists, socialists and campaigners are uniting to lend their voice to the growing support for the fight undertaken by the workers at Vestas to save jobs.

Vestas: the fight goes on!

No Victimisation! Reinstate the Occupiers!

After eighteen days in occupation, the first stage of the campaign against job losses at Vestas Newport has come to a close but workers have made it clear that the fight goes on.

The eyes of the world turned to Vestas as bailiffs removed workers on Friday; a lunchtime protest of hundreds of workers and their families showed the continued support that the occupation has.

Now that support must be turned out towards the wider trade union movement to continue to build on the pressure that the government and the employer are already feeling. Click here to read on...

Join the Vestas demonstrations!

Tomorrow at 9.30am there will be another demonstration outside the courts as the Vestas bosses try once again to evict the heroic workers. If you can make it to the protest get in touch with us via info.bhsp@gmail.com for directions and /or assistance.

If you can't make the demonstration and you're in Brighton tomorrow come along and help with the mass leafletting/collection at 5.30pm, Tuesday evening at Brighton Station to help spread word of the battle and build support.

A Brighton Vestas support group is being set up with the first proper meeting on Wednesday at 7pm at the Cowley Club. Everyone is welcome to get involved.

Finally, the morale of the Vestas workers inside the factory is buoyed up with every message of support. So please continue to send your messages of solidarity to the details below:

Messages of support to:
savevestas@googlemail.com,
http://savevestas.wordpress.com
text: 07980 703115

Nationalise Vestas to save jobs!

(Photographs from RMT TV)

Now nearing the third week of occupation, working class people across the UK are looking towards the lads occupying Vestas as a source of inspiration for how to stand up and fight in defence of jobs. In the face of a viciously anti-union employer, Vestas workers have stood firm and stared down management. Is it any wonder, however, that Vestas workers are compelled to struggle? There are 625 jobs on the line at Vestas and currently only 124 job vacancies on the entire island!

The economic crisis that greedy bosses and pro-market politicians have helped mold means this fight is more critical than ever. But Vestas workers have got the employer on the back foot; the adjournment of the court hearing to obtain an injunction last Wednesday doesn’t just represent Vestas management’s incompetence but also the popularity of the occupation – which has made New Labour hesitant to use the courts against it. The support of the local transport union – RMT – and their commitment to provide legal support for the court hearings has been a huge boost to the occupiers; now is an opportunity for trade unionists from across the island and further afield to express solidarity with Vestas workers – we need to build mass action to bring Vestas bosses to their knees and force the hand of the weakened New Labour government!

Vestas diet plan
Prisoners in Camp Hill get three hot meals a day, yet Vestas bosses have been allowed to try and starve out occupying workers! When once of the occupiers, Luke, was forced to leave the occupation on Thursday, he was pale and shaking and paramedics found his blood sugar levels to be unusually low. How can Vestas bosses sleep at night when they know that they have sanctioned a brutal siege? We need to make sure that vital supplies get to the occupiers – not through short-term stunts, but by mobilising hundreds of people, occupier’s families, trade unionists and others to put pressure on everywhere we can. The employers have dragged Vestas workers to the courts for occupying; we should drag them to the courts for starving people! This, alongside mass action, could force supplies in.

Mass action for victory
If attempts are made to physically remove the workers from the factory a massive trade union demonstration outside the plant should be immediately organised in their support. The workers' movement in Britain should learn the lessons from South Korea, where more than 800 workers have been occupying the Ssangyong car plant since May. Despite riot police storming the plant, the occupation has continued. The Korean Congress of Trade Unions has called a two day general strike to support them. There are differences in the situation, but any moves to clamp down on the occupiers would have deep reverberations. The trade union movement needs to be prepared to harness the anger that any moves against Vestas workers would create, including organising industrial action in their defence.

Nationalise to save jobs and the environment
If this factory goes, what does the future have in store? Occupiers who’ve been separated from their families for over two weeks fighting for a decent future would be forced to up sticks and leave the island. To find work and support a family there’s no other option, and even then nothing's guaranteed. Vestas management have callously made it clear that they have no interest in keeping the plant open when it's easier and cheaper to screw workers in the United States. In that context, appealing to the government to increase subsidies, as Green MEP Caroline Lucas has, makes no sense – Vestas have already said they don’t care about the subsidies! We have to be clear about it – this plant should be nationalised to ensure a future for workers on the Isle of Wight and the environment.

Across the country, over 80 per cent of people support wind power – but none of us want unemployment in our back yard! Yet the government, and Tory local councils, are allowing a very small minority to block turbines being built. Contrast this to their attititude to nuclear power stations, which endanger local peoples' health, that the government just impose. Brown and Milliband might make the occasional green noise, but they’re so wedded to the ‘free market’ that they’re desperate to avoid further nationalisations. But this economic crisis has shown that the market doesn’t work and New Labour have been forced to nationalise – Northern Rock, RBS, the East Coast trainline; the list is getting longer and longer! As the lads in the occupation have put it: “If the government can spend billions bailing out the banks – and even nationalise them – then surely they can do the same at Vestas.” The government's hand can be forced, and we need to be clear that this is what we’re demanding. Of course, what happened at RBS and the like wasn’t genuine nationalisation – we’ve taken the risks off the bosses for them. What we really need is socialist nationalisation – where working people have a direct say in how companies are organised and run. Vestas needs to be retooled for the British market – who knows how to organise that best? The workers on the shop floor? Or managers who can’t even fill in an injunction application properly who want to shut the factory down?

Workers need a political voice
None of the establishment parties support the action that Vestas workers have been forced to take – a Labour MP in Pompey has refused to even sign a petition supporting them! This is hardly much to ask. Workers at Vestas have waged a heroic struggle and shown their strength on the industrial front. But imagine how much easier the fight would have been if a political party with a national profile had thrown its weight clearly behind them. Criminally, there isn’t a mass political party in Britain that stands in workers interests! Rather, New Labour helped push through the liberal employment laws that make it legal for Vestas to dump workers in the Isle of Wight and move to the US without a bye-or-leave. That’s why the Socialist Party along with others, including the RMT, who’ve played an important role in this dispute, participated in a list of working class candidates in the European elections. We’re hoping to get a workers list together for the General Election when it happens, so workers have candidates who stand in their interests to vote for. This could be an important step towards the sort of mass working class party that could play a decisive role in struggles like this in the future.

For more information on the Vestas campaign click here...

Support the Vestas workers! DEMONSTRATE 6PM WED 29 JULY

Vestas workers, the RMT trade union and the working class community of the Isle of Wight are calling for a show of strength in support of the fighting Vestas workers at a demonstration this Wednesday evening outside the factory gates. RMT general secretary Bob Crow will address the public rally at 6pm but all supporters will be welcome at any time during the day. A report will be given of the County Court hearing happening at 10.15am that morning whereby the company is seeking to evict the protesters and a demo is planned outside this venue too.

The wind turbine company has set this Friday (31 July) as the deadline for closing the factory with the loss of 625 jobs. The factory has been under workers’ occupation since Tuesday last week. Communication lines into the factory have been cut and deliveries of food and water have been blockaded by private security guards.

This is a crucial labour dispute about the right to protection from companies who hire and fire, and the right to live in a world where the environment and sustainability are absolute priorities. There is massive support for the striking workers on the Isle of Wight with hundreds of people turning out every night, including as many as 700 on Thursday last week where RMT general secretary spoke. See the video above...

A minibus organised by the Brighton and Hove TUC Unemployed Workers' Centre will be leaving Brighton around 1pm on Wednesday to attend the 6pm demo. Please email us at info.bhsp@gmail.com if you would like to go. Spaces are limited so do hurry.

Alternatively, you can make your own way from London and the South East with these RMT supplied directions:

Travelling from London and the South East: Take the Wightlink ferry from Portsmouth Harbour and then bus number 9 from Ryde Esplanade to Newport town centre (40 minutes) and then a number 1 bus (3-4 minutes), getting off at St Mary’s and follow the signs to St Cross Business Park.

Travelling by car from London and the South East: Travel from Portsmouth Gun Wharf to Fishbourne, when exiting follow signs to Newport town centre and just before the town centre take the A3020 to Cowes and when you see the B&Q shop, turn off the dual carriageway and follow signs to St Cross Business Park

Finally, please send the workers your urgent messages of support and solidarity to savevestas@gmail.com and spread the word of the campaign.

Support the Vestas workers! No to job cuts!

On Monday 20 July workers at the Vestas factory on the Isle of Wight, the only wind turbine factory in the UK, went into occupation due to growing opposition to the plants closure and managements bullying attempts to silence this opposition. Workers are calling for support for their struggle, and in the face of management plans to carry through the closure of the plant, the demand for nationalisation is gaining ground.

Vestas announced closure of its plants in Southampton and the Isle of Wight taking over 600 jobs with it – but the workers of Vestas are organising their fight back.

For messages of support and solidarity please email savevestas@gmail.com

Save jobs at Vestas wind turbine plant
By Ben Norman, Portsmouth Socialist Party

Over 600 workers at the Vestas factory on the Isle of Wight are on the brink of losing their jobs after the company announced they intend to move production of wind turbine blades to America. The workers have been offered an insulting redundancy package of less than £1,000 and at a public meeting last week a call for action was raised.

The meeting, called by the Isle of Wight trades council and a local campaign group called 'Workers Climate Action', was attended by around 150 people, made up of Vestas workers and local residents.

The ideas raised by the seven speakers, none of whom were Vestas workers, varied enormously. Members of 'Workers Climate Action' called for immediate direct action and factory occupation. Speakers from the trades council simply urged workers to join their local union.

These demands are not enough, especially as the factory bosses do not recognise the trade unions. Members of the Socialist Party raised the need for a clear programme of demands to accompany coordinated action and urged both the meeting organisers and the workers to learn the lessons of Lindsey, Visteon and Linamar.

The job losses at Vestas are not unique on the Isle of Wight. There has been a 15,000 increase in the number of people forced to claim unemployment benefit since last year. Currently the island is the lowest wage economy in the UK. Closure of a factory of this size would be a disaster for the entire Island.

The workers of the island will not find allies in the bosses or even in their elected MPs. Tory MP Andrew Turner effectively turned his back on the workers by saying: "My job is not to solve this problem!"

The representative from SEEDA, the regional development agency, said that although they have a budget in excess of £169 million, there was no will to use it to save Vestas jobs.

One member of the trades council even announced that they had written to Peter Mandelson to petition him to save the plant.

We say that the answer will not be found with Lord Mandelson or an unelected government quango.

We pledge our support to and call for clear demands for the workers of Vestas, including:

• No to job cuts.
• Re-invest in the factory - Keep production going.
• Full trade union recognition.
• Take the factory into public ownership under democratic workers' control and management.
• Form an action committee to take the campaign forward.
• Organise a demonstration on the Isle of Wight as soon as possible to build solidarity for the Vestas workers.

Meeting: Do you have to be red to be green?

Socialist Students at Sussex University meet up with the Environment society to debate how capitalism creates climate problems and why socialism offers real solutions to protect and manage the environment.

Meet at 5pm this Thursday 7 February, Sussex University, room EDB121 in the arts block

Thousands march against climate change

[First published on our national website by Sarah Sachs-Eldridge: December 2007]


Photographs: Climate change demo December 2007, Paul Mattsson

"I SAID the other day it was system change we needed," one young person told his friend as they saw our posters on the Socialist Party stall before the 8 December climate change demo.

As we distributed leaflets and sold papers to protesters, tourists and passers-by, everyone agreed with our general assessment that big business is responsible for the problems facing the environment. Even a policeman sidled up to buy a paper!

The BBC estimated that over 10,000 joined the march, organised by the Campaign Against Climate Change. By the end coach-loads of protesters had arrived and the rain had stopped so the overall turnout was probably higher than that.

The weather certainly had an effect. Nonetheless young people, anti-airport expansion groups, green groups, socialists, and many other groups and individuals made their way from Parliament Square to the US embassy.

A BBC World Service survey of more than 22,000 people in 21 countries showed that nine out of ten people said action was necessary on climate change. Two-thirds of people went further, saying "it is necessary to take major steps starting very soon".

Some green campaigners need to realise that this is an issue that socialists and other activists and the vast majority of working-class people take very seriously.

Members and supporters of International Socialist Resistance, Socialist Students and the Socialist Party formed a very loud and political bloc on a relatively quiet demonstration, attracting many youth to join our chants and our campaigns.

Our chants called for the nationalisation of big business and public services and for fundamental change in how society is run to address the risk posed to the planet. Throughout the demonstration people could be seen reading the ISR and Socialist Students "Our planet not their profit" leaflet.
The rain made most paper into papier mâché within seconds but where we could find shelter we had an excellent response to our petition calling for the re-nationalisation of public transport.
People felt it was a concrete measure that could be taken which could have an impact on carbon emission levels. This issue also enabled us to discuss the need for new mass workers' parties as an alternative to the parties of big business and sleaze.

At our street meeting at the end of the demonstration, we made the point that you can't control what you don't own. Having heard our ideas and seen us in action, many people made financial donations to our campaigning work and filled in cards to join us.

We will keep campaigning on these issues in schools and universities with a day of action on 'public transport not private profit' in the new year.