Author: Rachael Brooks
Liberal Democrats Response To Vestas News
9:52 am Wednesday, 29th April, 2009, Isle of Wight
ShortURL: http://wig.ht/27tt
Read More- Business, Community, Green Issues, Island-wide, Newport
Following the news yesterday that wind turbine blade manufacturers, Vestas, plan to close their manufacturing plant in Newport, the Island Liberal Democrats tell us that they’re shocked to learn of the possible loss of 500 jobs at Vestas.
Jill Wareham, Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary Candidate, said
“This is devastating news for those people and their families who are losing their jobs. The knock on effect of the closure of the factory will also have a massive impact to the whole economy on the Island.
“We, as Liberal Democrats, are particularly saddened because we fought to bring Vestas to the Island over ten years ago. We expect that both the MP and the Council will be moving quickly to contact the Government Ministers and SEEDA to attract more financial support so Vestas can stay on the Island.”
They dont need more government cash, they need a sense of corporate responsibility.
Profits up 70%, sales up 20%, but they want to shut becasue the Chinese and US are funding new plants there. The UK workforce has done nothing wrong, they have created a very successful company, and Vestas owe it to them to support them, not to chase around the world after government cash.
If they are kept here now with goverment cash, then it will only be a few years before they threaten again. Did they not build the place with government cash? If they close do we get it back?
Its shameful to treat the workforce and the UK people like this.
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Quite right – this company has milked the British taxpayer of millions, now it wants to go and find more cash elsewhere. It’s a disgrace. The Liberals and the Labour party fell over themselves to hand out our cash, they behaved like fools. They even got the EU to cough up the cash for their transport barges and infrastructure. All wasted money. I remember how they all wanted the credit for getting the facory here. Now they should take the blame for its failure.
The 600 plus workers they will now abandon can feel very angry and bitter indeed. Let’s remember too the others not directly employed by Vestas but dependent on it. What now the ‘turbines are good for island jobs’ lies? The politicians should ensure this company never again milk the taxpayer in the UK. (They won’t learn of course, they never do!)
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If you google Vestas closure, you find a trail of havoc in Campbeltown, Scotland and in Australia, where Vestas have closed plants. Certainly with the closure of the Scottish plant, there seems to have been arguments about the company receiving grants/funding to encourage them there in the first place – ironically they lost the work to the plant here on the Island – history repeating itself?
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Worth a look: Check out Greenpeace
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Vestas are global industrialists. It’s not a surprise that they act only in their own interest with little sense of responsibility to anyone else (or even to the environment).
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The campaign to save Vestas is going to need more than a petition.The workforce need to look at the example of Visteon in Enfield and Belfast, who have just achieved a result in their campaign to force the company to offer a better deal. The main difference is that they were in a union. Unfortunately there is no union recognition at Vestas. Not too late to try and get a recruitment campaign going to build on the few members currently on the site. This coupled with a union campaign at national level to put pressure on the likes of Ed Miliband at the Dept of Energy and Climate Change will help to expose the craziness of this decision. An international link up with the 900 workers in Denmark who could lose their jobs is needed as well.
All this requires the workforce to recognise that they do not have to take this lying down because it can’t be done for them. Surely the fight to keep green manufacturing jobs on the Isle of Wight can be won, but not if we rely on the main political parties. Visteon proves yet again that only if the workforce mobilise do we stand a chance of a successful outcome.
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It’s a national emergency so the government shold act as it did in the last European war and requisition the factory and its equipment- we paid for it and there is a need for the product so it is in the public and international interest that production should continue to safeguard the environment
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