Author: simon
Vestas Sit-in: Isle of Wight Green Euro-MP Proposes Rescue Plan
Thursday, 30th July, 2009 at 5:36 pm, Isle of Wight
Community, Employment, Newport, Vestas Sit-In
Caroline Lucas, the Isle of Wight’s Green Euro-MP has formulated what she feels is a possible solution to the current crisis at the Vestas Blade factory.
The head of the Green party on the Island, Brian Lucas, is to deliver a proposal to David Pugh to turn the Vestas Blades factory into Workers Co-operative.
Sustainable Communities Act 2007
Under the Sustainable Communities Act 2007, councils and communities have the opportunity to put forward proposals on sustainable improvements to local economic, environmental and social wellbeing.
Once established, individual councils’ proposals are sent to the Government via the Local Government Association. The deadline for current submissions to the LGA is 31st July 2009.
The Green party will call on the IW Council to ask for Government support under the terms of the 2007 Act to ensure that:
- The workers of the wind turbine company Vestas are permitted to form a Workers’ Cooperative, and are supported in doing so by the Government;
- Financial support (at the very least unemployment benefit) is paid to the workers of Vestas until such time as the proposed Workers’ Cooperative is financially viable.
Commenting on it, Caroline Lucas said, “If the Government is serious about tackling climate change, helping to protect the future of UK manufacturing, and safeguarding local jobs, it must act now to keep the Vestas facility open for business.
“By submitting a proposal under the Sustainable Communities Act for a workers’ co-op, the Council can demand that the government provides the investment and assurances necessary to save this facility – on the basis that it plays a crucial economic and environmental role in the local community.”
Related posts:
- Who Writes The Isle of Wight Corporate Plan?
Just who exactly is involved with the Corporate Plan?... - Island Euro MP Talks on Climate Change
[ 19, April 2007; 7:30 pm; ] Thanks to one... - Vestas Protest: Interview with Caroline Lucas MEP (podcast)
VentnorBlog catches up with Caroline Lucas as she visits ex-Vestas... - Push the Green Button
[ 21, November 2009; 11:00 am; ] This green awareness... - Vestas Protest: Ed Miliband to Meet Isle of Wight Council
IW Labour Group have secured a meeting between IWC Leaders...
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So the Green Party is going to present a suggestion of a workers co-operative to a Tory council…they will either laugh or have a heart attack.
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It sounds like a plan to me.
One with some merit and also one which adds to the pressure on the government.
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I find this option to be a very viable solution. There is a lot of work needed to get this going. If people are available to hash out some solutions for this, it would be a great boost for the UK, and the Isle of Wight!
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As we told Andrew Turner Mp, we will endorse plans that include the workers and Isle of Wight citizens in decision making and proposals to ensure further production of wind turbines.
Blades will be produced on this island!!!
Ryde Trades Council
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In the first place, Vestas is an issue which needs to be taken up by government, not left to the local council. In the second, what will the Greens’ proposal lead to? The co-operative will still be competing on the market. It may last a while but it will be driven to cut costs to compete, and like every other workers’ co-op (eg Tower Colliery in Wales) will eventually go under. The environment is in such danger, and green energy so important, that the only answer is to take Vestas into full public ownership, under the control of its workers.
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THE CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT
The earliest Co-operatives were mainly attempts by groups of workers to break the monopoly of the millers and to provide cheap flour for their members. Examples were the Hull Anti-Mill So¬ciety of 1795 and the Devenport Union Mill of 1817. Then came Owenite Utopian Socialism and the Co-operatives were hailed as the key to the peaceful supersession of Capitalism.
The `new model’ Co-operative was that of the Rochdale “Equitable Pioneers” having founded their Co-operative shop in Toad Lane in 1844. Twenty-eight men started it with twenty¬eight pounds. They survived by paying a divi¬dend on purchases. The greatest single benefit that the “Co-ops” brought to the workers was pure food. There were `sand in the sugar’ gro¬cers, and other adulterators commonplace then.
In the 1860’s the Co-operative wholesale so¬ciety came into being to supply goods to the re¬tail societies and in the next decade it began ac¬tually to produce goods in its own factories.
In 1869 began the regular series of annual Co-operative Congresses, which has continued.
From the second congress sprang the Co-opera¬tive Central Board, which developed into the Co¬operative Union, the co-ordinating body for propaganda and education. The first central board contained Owenite and trade union Junta (forerunner to the TUC) mem¬bers. Also there were sympathisers from the mid¬dle class who became less needed as time went on.
On many occasions the Co-op’s supported the wider working class movement including strike struggles.
Eventually people who had become success¬ful traders in commerce got to the top. The be¬lief that the movement would peacefully put an end to the competitive system, while never for¬mally abandoned, became more of a pious dream than a reality.
The Co-operative movement took in thou¬sands of workers who learned how to organise and administer large-scale business enterprise at the time. This demonstrated conclusively that the ability to do so is not confined to the Capitalist Class.
There are many co-operatives in operation and working successfully throughout the world today.
Legacoop in Italy has 414, 383 employees, 7, 736, 210 members and turns over €50Bn per year growing at a steady rate of 4.41%
Japan has a very large and well developed consumer cooperative movement with over 14 million members; retail co-ops alone had a combined turnover of 2.519 trillion Yen (21.184 billion US dollars [market exchange rates as of 11/15/2005]) in 2003/4. (Japanese Consumers’ Co-operative Union., 2003).
Migros is the largest supermarket chain in Switzerland and keeps the cooperative society as its form of organization. Nowadays, a large part of the Swiss population are members of the Migros cooperative – around 2 million of Switzerland’s total population of 7.2 million, thus making Migros a supermarket chain that is owned by its customers.
Coop is another Swiss cooperative which operates the second largest supermarket chain in Switzerland after Migros. In 2001, Coop merged with 11 cooperative federations which had been its main suppliers for over 100 years. As of 2005, Coop operates 1437 shops and employs almost 45,000 people. According to Bio Suisse, the Swiss organic producers’ association, Coop accounts for half of all the organic food sold in Switzerland.
United Kingdom, Channel Islands and Isle of Man
British co-operative movement
Co-operative Group, including
Co-operative Bank
ArtZone Co-op Ltd
Anglia Regional Co-operative Society
Baywind Energy Co-operative
Bristol Wood Recycling Project
Brixton Cycles
Calverts graphic design & print co-operative
Channel Islands Co-operative Society
Chelmsford Star Co-operative Society
Colchester and East Essex Co-operative Society
Coniston Co-operative Society
Co-operative Press
East of England Co-operative Society
Eighth Day co-operative[84]
Footprint Workers’ Co-op[85]
Heart of England Co-operative Society
Highburton Co-operative Society
Ilkeston Co-operative Society
John Lewis Partnership (employee-owned business, not formal co-op)
Langdale Co-operative Society
Lincolnshire Co-operative Society
Lupine Adventure Co-operative[86]
Magpie Recycling
Manx Co-operative Society
Midcounties Co-operative
Midlands Co-operative Society
New Internationalist
Penrith Co-operative Society
People’s Press Printing Society
Phone Co-op
Plymouth and South West Co-operative Society
Radstock Co-operative Society
Ruskin House
Scottish Midland Co-operative Society
Seeds for Change Network
Shared Interest
Shepley Co-operative Society
Southern Co-operatives
Substance Co-op
Suma Wholefoods (Triangle Wholefoods Collective Ltd)[87]
Swann Morton worker co-op
Tamworth Co-operative Society
Total Coverage Co-operative Design Consultancy
Veggies of Nottingham
Wooldale Co-operative Society
Football and rugby union supporters’ trusts are incorporated as co-operatives of supporters. Several own the football club outright and many hold equity in the club.
One contemporary co-operative was The Meridan Motor cycle factory back in the 1970’s. In difficult economic circumstances, after the three day week of Ted Heath’s government, the workers stepped in to rescue an important marque.
NVT institigated a program of works closures, deciding to concentrate production on Wolverhampton and Small Heath. Poorly handled in communications, the announcement caused a sit-in at Meriden, which as it produced parts for other factories caused Small Heath to shut down. With the election of the 1974 Labour government, the Meriden workers’ co-operative was formed with NVT its sole customer for its production of 750cc Triumph Bonneville T140V and Triumph Tiger TR7V models.
Break up and closure
In July 1975, Labour Industry Minister Eric Varley recalled a loan for 4 million pounds and refused to renew the company’s export credits. The company went into receivership, and redundancies were announced for all of the staff at the various sites. Ironically slated by management for closure, the Meriden site survived on Eric Varley’s predecessor, Tony Benn ’s plan to derive benefit from Triumph Bonneville by a worker co-operative with a substantial Government loan. The capitalist market pilloried the the co-operative from its inset and made trade difficult. Nevertheless it continued to survive.
NVT was eventually liquidated in 1978. Even though Norton Villiers Triumph is no more, motorcycles bearing the Triumph name are still being made; the marketing rights to Triumph being sold to the Meriden worker’s co-operative in 1977 and upon its having gone into receivership in 1983, sold onto a new Triumph Motorcycles Ltd company situated in Hinckley, Leicestershire. Dennis Poore became Managing Director of Maganese Bronze, until his death in 1987.
The workers’ buy out from redundancy packages of Tower Colliery in Wales was seen as heroic after it had been run down from 14 seams at its height. The Miners strike of 1984-85 was difficult in terms of market. What choice did the workers have in terms of defending their community and local jobs?
Although the mine remained financially viable and continued to provide employment to the workers, by the time of the buyout the only seam worked at Tower was the Seven Feet/Five Feet, a combined seam of several leaves which offered 1.3m of anthracite in a mined section of 1.65m working directly under the shaft of the former Glyncorrwg Colliery’s “nine feet” workings, the four faces worked in the western section of the lease were considered uneconomic by British Coal.
As the worked seam reduced in capacity, the management team considered three possibilities to extend the length of mine production:
• Work another nine faces in the existing workings, in coal classed only as mineral potential
• Address the water problem in the Bute seam, to the northwest
• Open new developments in the Nine Feet seam, 100m above the existing seam; the Four Feet seam, a further 30m above
• But none of these prospects seemed economic, so the board recommended that work be concentrated on coal to the north of the existing workings, which had been left to protect the safety of the existing shafts. Accepted by the workforce and shareholders in an open vote, this decision effectively accepted the end of Tower as a deep mine.
Having mined out the northern coal extracts, the colliery was last worked on January 18, 2008 and the official closure of the colliery occurred on January 25. The colliery was until its closure, one of the largest employers in the Cynon Valley. In difficult historical circumstances in a changing world keeping a mine open in the first place was brave. But considering it lasted so long and provided a further 23 years of working it has to be seen in that context too. Also the discussion on energy reserves and the market increasing for coal, prior to the recession, the jury was still out on further exploitation of British reserves and the prospect of clean coal technology advocated by the NUM. This is seen as increasingly a viable proposition.
Once more we have the Vestas occupation with suggestions made for its continued existence. We are in a recession but the situation is different in the sense of there being a viable market if the government were to take the proper course in supporting the production of wind turbines and their distribution. Renewables and low carbon technology are seen as an important aspect of coming out of recession. It is necessary to encourage and assist viable arrangements for the production of Wind turbines. There is no reason why it should fail.
Ryde Trades Council
rydetcouncil@yahoo.com
http://rtuc.wordpress.com/
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We havent come late to the party since we have been working out how set up a workers co-op from day one. Our researchers at office have found this little used act as a backup to our proposals. It is like other Labour party
initiatives, all sound and no substance since they didnt put any money into it. However it might turn round and bite them now !
Vestas is another example of how big business takes money from simple minded ministers. They go where governments are prepared to give them money and move on when it dries up !
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With all due respect, RTUC (am I speaking to all of you?), pasting large chunks from Wikipedia does not help the argument for workers’ co-ops – especially if the Co-op bank is listed as an example to follow! I was active in the fight to save the pits in S Wales, having out these same arguments with Tower miners.
We need to look at the bigger picture. This is not just about Vestas, but our entire energy policy. Now, more than ever, the generation of energy must be planned, and the only way to do that is not through a random smattering of workers co-ops competing on the market, but by taking the energy producers into public ownership.
Margaret Thatcher and Blair after her obviously did a good job of taking this option off the agenda, since so many, even on the left, are afraid to raise it. But we have just seen billions of taxpayers money used to bail out the banks. Why can’t we demand our money is now used to take Vestas into public ownership, under the control of its workers, and without a shred of compensation for the bosses who were prepared to summarily dump them?
Having said that, if Vestas workers choose to turn their occupation into self-management, I hope everyone will support them a hundred per cent. But I hope they will not have to shoulder all the financial risk and responsibility for long.
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