Workers' Weekly On-Line
Volume 55 Number 1, January 25, 2025 ARCHIVE HOME JBCENTRE SUBSCRIBE

Workers Forum

Vestas Isle of Wight Once Again Announces Hundreds Are At Risk of Redundancy

Vestas announced on December 11, 2024, that 600 jobs at its Isle of Wight factory are at risk of redundancy. Though Vestas' technology activities, employing around 140 people, remain so far unaffected, the decision leaves hundreds of local people uncertain about the coming year, not to mention the knock-on effects to the island's economy.

Though a 45-day "consultation" period has been initiated, with a final decision expected today, January 25, it is a decision in which none of the workers and others directly or indirectly affected have played any role. Workers had been summoned to the Stag Lane depot, where some were told to give up their uniforms, there and then, at the meeting, to get changed as they would not be going back to the factory floor. The doors to the rest of the building were closed [1]. The whole style is of a decision imposed, and arranged so as to attempt to completely disempower the workers and their communities. The memory of the workers' occupation 15 years ago is evidently still fresh in the mind of the senior management.

A spokesperson for the company cited a collapse in demand for their offshore blades, specifically their V174 model. "You are aware that this was the last customer project in the pipeline for the V174. There is no longer any demand for this product in the market, and we have not secured any additional orders for the V174," they said. "We have been building blades for the service project, which was intended to take us through early to March next year, with the expectation that we would build 33 blades... Today, I need to tell you that the order from service has been reduced from 33 to 15 blades. Due to this reduction, we are building the last web and prefab components now."

After 15 years and more, the problems at Vestas on the Isle of Wight remain. Workers occupied the plant in 2009 at a time when they were being sacked, their organisation was being wrecked, and the site's productive capacity undermined. Jobs are now threatened once again. For the workers, and the community at large, it is unfinished business.

The occupying workers demanded control over their destiny, in a militant manifestation of their desire to replace the existing decision-makers. They called for nationalisation at that time as means towards public ownership, putting on the agenda the question of "Whose company? Who does the plant belong to?" Supporters gathered and camped outside the factory gates and made their views known on the famous "Magic Roundabout", the demands of the occupation open for all to see. The modern democratic personality began to take shape, both collectively through the discussion and decision-making that began to flourish, and in the form of individuals who spoke from erected platforms outside the site in solidarity. Those in power at the present time seek to maintain a level of control that prevents any repeat of such actions and movement amongst the workers and local population [2].

There is a further dimension to the move from onshore to offshore wind power. Ed Miliband, the Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary, has been promoting Green New Deal initiatives. He has been carrying out the government agenda for control over energy, a pipedream of Britain becoming a "clean energy superpower", with Britain a key hub in the global energy corridors, and where wind power is controlled from Britain [3]. A key aspect of the plan is new public-private partnerships, which "will see the public sector taking on a new role undertaking additional early development work for offshore wind projects." [4] Not only is there nothing green about this latest rehash of "making Britain great again", but it is also destined to fail as it does nothing to address the direction of the economy.

Vestas workers and the people of the Isle of Wight are well-acquainted with Ed Miliband. Back in 2009, as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, he was responsible for overseeing the country's energy policies and climate change initiatives. Confronted by the workers demanding intervention to save the plant, his response was "No" - government does not interfere in commercial decisions [5].

So, why the change of heart? Labour is pretending that growth is replacing austerity. That growth can be met by the Green New Deal, that investments will be ensured and jobs created, and that now there is this new public role in offshore wind projects. In the case of Vestas, the company is demanding a bailout from the government if they are to continue to produce. This demand for a pay-the-rich scheme is a fraud to pump diminishing resources into failure. Still the issues of the direction of the economy, and crucially, who decides, remain.

At the heart of the problem is the competition for a share in a shaky "renewables" market. The company claims that its facility can no longer cope with the supply and demand issues of large blade turbines. Global investors, and various national governments in their service, from Biden to Starmer, and including Denmark, where Vestas is headquartered, have turned their attention to "green revolution": green new deals, destined for failure and cannot become the replacement industry for existing commodity production growth. There is no magic bullet to enable business as usual. The current operating system of raw material and energy extraction that enables the economy to function requires fundamental changes in line with the equally fundamental change in the direction of the economy that is required. A bailout with investment targeted in "offshore" and not "onshore" is another impending failure. Capacity will be destroyed or neglected here too because the company cannot control the failing "renewables" market.

In reality, the recent climate-change engendered storm Darragh ripped the blades from turbines and shattered fields of solar panels [6]. The floundering government deliverology cannot be sustained: the planned basis of energy production has become the anathema and fly in the ointment of the cartel parties. There is only speculation left and no discussion of concrete reality. So how are workers to settle the scores?

The fact is that now, today, the conscious workforce are raising their voices ever higher, demanding a say in the decision-making process. They are rejecting being marginalised and presented as non-existent. Rather, workers are seeking ways to empower themselves so that their solutions as to how the technology should adapt, how the labour should be transferred, or how existing energy should be used, can be heeded. What technology development should there be for the peaceful development of society? How can production change at Vestas as the entire direction of the economy as a whole should change? At Vestas, on the Isle of Wight, among those who raised the questions in 2009 and those who are asking them again now, workers must and will take this discussion further.

Notes

1. "600 jobs at risk as redundancies announced at Vestas just 2 weeks before Christmas", Darren Toogood, December 11, 2024, Island Echo
https://www.islandecho.co.uk/600-jobs-at-risk-as-redundancies-announced-at-vestas-just-2-weeks-before-christmas
2. See for example Workers' Daily Internet Edition, July 29, 2009
https://www.rcpbml.org.uk/wdie-09/d09-054.htm
3. "The Labour Government's Economic Programme", Workers' Weekly, August 11, 2024
https://www.rcpbml.org.uk/wwie-24/ww24-19/ww24-19-03.htm
4. "New Great British Energy partnership launched to turbocharge energy independence", Government press release, July 25, 2024
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-great-british-energy-partnership-launched-to-turbocharge-energy-independence
5. "Confronting Ed Miliband", Workers' Daily Internet Edition, August 3, 2009
https://www.rcpbml.org.uk/wdie-09/d09-055.htm
6. "Solar Farms and Wind Turbines Tested and Failed by Storm Darragh", The Civil Engineer, December 9, 2024
https://www.thecivilengineer.org/news/solar-farms-and-wind-turbines-tested-and-failed-by-storm-darragh?form=MG0AV3


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