Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Vestas Roof-Top Occupation – Wed 05 Aug 09 – Pix-&-Vidz

Tim Dalinian Jones | 06.08.2009 13:48 | Climate Chaos | Energy Crisis | Workers' Movements | South Coast

Dateline: Roof-Top Occupation, Vestas Venture Quays Workshop, East Cowes, Isle of Wight, UK, Wed 05 Aug 09 – Before Vestas Wind Systems were handed an eviction order against the 15-day-old Newport turbine blade factory occupation, five climate activists, including an RMT member, occupied the roof of Vestas’ harbour-side facility. With tents set up, plenty of food, and an uninterrupted supply-line to supporters and well-wishers, this solidarity occupation is set to run indefinitely. The London Workers’ Climate Action crew stopped off on their journey home to resupply, cheer on and photograph our climbing-savvy comrades.

A1. That Banner In Full
A1. That Banner In Full

A2. Roof-Top Occupation Location, including the Resupply Point
A2. Roof-Top Occupation Location, including the Resupply Point

B1. Vestas’ buggered-about 30s industrial modernism + WCA London posse
B1. Vestas’ buggered-about 30s industrial modernism + WCA London posse

B2. Magnificent Climate Militants
B2. Magnificent Climate Militants

B3. “Top-o-the-world, Ma!”
B3. “Top-o-the-world, Ma!”

B4. Hauling Up Supplies at the Resupply Point
B4. Hauling Up Supplies at the Resupply Point

B5. A Green Roofscape
B5. A Green Roofscape

B6. Climate Camping on the Roof
B6. Climate Camping on the Roof

B7. Climbing Down for Morning Banner Maintenance
B7. Climbing Down for Morning Banner Maintenance

B8. Lads & Lass Aloft
B8. Lads & Lass Aloft

B9. Clenched Fist Salutes
B9. Clenched Fist Salutes

C1. ‘Butcher’s Apron’ paint job, and 40 m wind turbine blades
C1. ‘Butcher’s Apron’ paint job, and 40 m wind turbine blades

C2. Zooming in to East Cowes
C2. Zooming in to East Cowes

C3. Oil power, wind power, and industrial-scale environmental consequences
C3. Oil power, wind power, and industrial-scale environmental consequences

C4. Act in Solidarity Now – recount tales of our victories at your leisure
C4. Act in Solidarity Now – recount tales of our victories at your leisure


Vidz at YouTube

• Vestas Roof-Top Occupation
» LINK to follow shortly once editing & uploading is complete


At around 04:00 on Tue 04 Aug 09, four Climate Campers and an RMT member ascended a rear roof-access ladder on to the roof of Vestas’ vast Venture Quays workshop building in East Cowes on the Isle of Wight. Aircraft hanger like in scale, the massive front doors, which open on to the wharf, are painted in the red, white and blue design known to the victims of British imperialism as ‘The Butcher’s Apron’. But above the flag, there now appears a huge banner, secured in place with the help of climbing gear, which reads:

Vestas Workers SOLIDARITY – IN OCCUPATION – FIGHT FOR GREEN JOBS

Placement in spacetime could hardly be bettered – as the ‘Zooming in to East Cowes’ sequence shows above (C2), visitors arriving from Southampton at the ferry port simply cannot miss it. And timewise, Cowes Week runs Sat 01 to Sat 08 Aug 09, “when 8,500 competitors and more than 100,000 spectators converge on Cowes for the largest sailing regatta of its kind in the world” (or so says the Illustrated London News Ltd’s ‘Island Visitor’ magazine).

As the Workers’ Climate Action minibus in which our team of Vestas Occupation supporters was returning to London arrived early for our ferry, we had enough time to get a shopping list from the Roof-top Occupiers. The provisions were hauled up on a rope at the Resupply Point, shown in pix A2 and B4 above – and I loaned them by self-inflating camping mattress, to help ensure more restful sleep at night. So if you can help out with resupplying or increasing the comfort our Roof-top Occupiers (as a local female cleric has apparently pledged to do), head for the corner of Columbine Road and Albany Road and ask how you can help.

“We are still up here and will stay for as long as the workers stay in Newport. It is uncomfortable but not as uncomfortable as losing your job. We have seen good local support and are getting more banners put up today. We have been told to come down on safety grounds but apart from everything being at an angle, due to the slope of the roof, everything has been fine.”
~ Martin Shaw, 44, Roof-top Occupier, Wed 05 Aug 09
» quoted in ‘Night on roof for sit-in support’ –  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/8184934.stm

For some of the best news coverage of the twin Vestas Occupations, including recent Roof-top and Factory Occupation phone interviews, check out the VentnorBlog:

• Vestas Sit In Stories
»  http://ventnorblog.com/topic/vestas-sit-in/


Whatever Next?
Thu 06 Aug 09
• LONDON – Dept of Energy & Climate Change, 3 Whitehall Place, Rally, 18:30, organised by CACC

Fri 07 Aug 09
• SOUTH LONDON – Sayes Court Club House, 341 Evelyn Street, Deptford SE8 5QT, 15:00, Picket Climate Change Minister Joan Ruddock, tel: 07 951 450 370, followed by discussion about building for Wed 12 Aug Day of Action
• LONDON to NEWPORT – A minibus (or two!) will be leaving London on Friday evening from Clapham at 18:00 heading for Vestas, returning on Sunday – and will deliver a boost in numbers and energy to the fight to save jobs and save the planet! Cost between £10-£15 a head (or a bit more if you can afford to subsidise others), tel: Bex 07 971 719 797, email:  vestasvolunteers@riseup.net
• CENTRAL LONDON – “Right to work” meeting with Seb from Vestas Occupation, 18:30, Kings Cross site of SOAS, Vernon Square, Penton Rise, WC1X 9EW

Sat 8 Aug
• MANCHESTER – Market Street, 13:00, Street Stall; 15:00, March from Market Street to Piccadilly Gardens for a Rally, tel: Hugh 07 769 611 320

Wed 12 Aug
• Vestas Workers have called for a National Day of Action on Wed 12 Aug 09.
• LIVERPOOL – Casa (the dockers' pub), 29 Hope St, 19:00, RMT, Dockers and Merseyside TUC Meeting to set up Solidarity Campaign, tel: 0151 709 1786 / 07 940 244 718 / 07 930 870 934, email:  j.tilley@rmt.org.uk

Sat 19 Sep
• LOCATION TBC – 12:00-18:00, Workers' Climate Action Conference

In the event that the Factory Occupiers are evicted...
• BRISTOL – Demonstrate 17:30 same day at Bristol fountain
• MANCHESTER/WARRINGTON – Demonstrate 17:00 in Piccadilly Gardens and Protest at 20:00 the following day at Vestas HQ in Warrington


Links
• Save Vestas Campaign
»  http://savevestas.wordpress.com

• East Cowes rooftop demonstration in support of Vestas' staff, by Will Carson, Southern Daily Echo, Tue 04 Aug 09
»  http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/4527424.Rooftop_protesters_there__for_the_long_haul_/

• “Boys On the Balcony”
• Written and recorded by Seize the Day & workers and families from Vestas
» free download –  http://www.seizetheday.org/?download=true – MP3, 5.7Mb


Express YOUR Solidarity with the Vestas Workers Occupation
When your kids, grandchildren, nephews, nieces, etc. ask you, “What did YOU do in the Great Climate War?”, here are the things you can tell them about that YOU did to aid this struggle.

1. Go There: Join the Vestival solidarity camp on the “Magic Roundabout” at the factory gates
» Travel board –  http://savevestas.wordpress.com/travel-noticeboard/

2. Mutual Aid: Let’s put OUR Money where our Mouth Is – Donate to the Save Vestas Campaign
» By PayPal: from the campaign home page –  http://savevestas.wordpress.com
» By Cheque: payable to ‘Ryde and East Wight Trades Union Council’, 22 Church Lane, Ryde, Isle of Wight, PO33 2NB

3. Tell Vestas: Feed Them Properly!
This report from the Guardian  http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/30/vestas-factory-workers-food-union and Luke Paxton’s interview on BBC  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/8177197.stm present a grim picture of the food situation for the workers occupying the plant. Congratulations to those who got some food in today, but we also need to put maximum pressure on the company to stop… starving our boys!

• Email/telephone Vestas with a simple message: feed the Vestas occupiers properly or keep receiving these emails/telephone calls. There are Vestas offices all over the world:
»  http://www.vestas.com/en/about-vestas/find-vestas.aspx

• Starting close to home, here are the details for Warrington, Vestas’ UK HQ:
» Email:  vestas-celtic@vestas.com
» Tel: 01 925 857 100

• Vicki sent an email to these addresses – please join her, by copy-&-pasting the following to a "To:" field in your email app:
»  vestas@vestas.com,  vestas-americas@vestas.com,  vestas-argentina@vestas.com,  vestas-brazil@vestas.com,  vestas-australia@vestas.com,  vestas-newzealand@vestas.com,  vestaschina@vestas.com,  vestas-india@vestas.com,  vestas-asiapacific@vestas.com,  vestas-japan@vestas.com,  vestas-korea@vestas.com,  vestas-austria@vestas.com,  vestas-france@vestas.com,  vestas-centraleurope@vestas.com,  vestas-hellas@vestas.com,  vestas-italia@vestas.com,  vestas@vestas.nl,  vestas-poland@vestas.com,  vestasiberia@vestas.com,  vestas-mediterranean@vestas.com,  vestas-northerneurope@vestas.com,  vestas-mediterranean@vestas.com,  vestas-celtic@vestas.com

4. Moral Boosting: Communicate YOUR Solidarity
» Send messages of support from yourself and/or your organisation to  savevestas@googlemail.com
» Organise a visible demonstration of solidarity, take a photo with a placard that reads “Save Vestas” and email the photo to  savevestas@googlemail.com

5. Do The Right Thing: Try to get “New” Labour in Ministries to back Real Labour in Struggle

• Petition UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown online via the petitions.number10.gov.uk website – very quick-&-easy:
»  http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/SaveVestas/

• Petition energy minister Ed Miliband – flood him with calls for the Government to take over the Vestas factory and keep it producing, under new management
» sample message: It's “Money Where Mouth Is” time for UK Wind Turbine Manufacturing  http://dalinian.pbworks.com/It%27s-%E2%80%9CMoney-Where-Mouth-Is%E2%80%9D-time-for-UK-Wind-Turbine-Manufacturing
» Ed’s email –  ps.ed.miliband@decc.gsi.gov.uk
» Ed’s Doncaster constituency – 01302 875 462
» Ed’s Westminster number – 020 7219 4778

• Call on the UK Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills Lord Mandelson to save wind energy jobs
»  http://www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/climate/press_for_change/vestas_petition_20414.html


Please do all you can to help win a victory for the Vestas Workers occupations – for humanity and our biosphere.


Up the Revolution,

Tim Dalinian Jones


All these photos and video clips are 'CopyLeft'
This means you are free to copy and distribute any of my photos and videos you find here, under the following license:
• Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License
»  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
» Accreditation:  tim.dalinian.jones@gmail.com

NB: These pix are edited and downsized versions (up to 800x800px, 0.64Mpx, typically 100-900 KB) for onscreen display. If you would like the free, edited, full-sized versions (up to 3072x2304px, 7.1Mpx, typically 1-2 MB) for print, poster, placard, banner, etc, please email your request to tim.dalinian.jones [at] gmail.com quoting the picture title(s) you'd like.

Tim Dalinian Jones
- e-mail: tim.dalinian.jones@gmail.com
- Homepage: http://tinyurl.com/FB-dalinian

Comments

Display the following comment

  1. Further Photos — Tim Dalinian Jones
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech