Hi,Just letting you all know about a sit in protest on the Isle of Wight.
Vestas, a Danish company and the largets wind turbine manufacturer in the world, is shutting their factory on the Isle of Wight which makes the blades for wind turbines.
The problem is that the demand in the UK is not there for a couple of years due to the early stage investment is at and delays in the planning process.
Blades manufactured there were being exported to the USA but Vestas have opened a factory in the USA and are moving production there, it is often the case that permissions and government funding in the US is tied to US job creation.
Anyway the mangement have done a poor job of the consultation with the workers over the redundancies and despite making massive profits were not offering generous packages to them.
It is also a travesty thet the UK governement are investing millions in wind energy but are refusing to come up with a solution to the short term issue and help the factory stay open.
The lack of support for UK manufactuing is poor at best.
As a last ditch attempt to save their jobs about 20 workers are staging a peacful protest in the management offices at the plant. They have been there for 11 days now.
Vestas have now sacked them loosing their redundancy pay and pay in liue of notice.
They are continuing their protest and are asking for support.
Vestas made a total mess of an application for a court order to evict them (shows how good they are) yesterday and it was thrown out of court until next week for them to get their papers in order.
The island has few skilled jobs and loosing 600 is a big blow.
The government have just announced £6million grant to Vestas to create a R&D facility on the island only employing 150 and very few of these will be former Vestas workers. Vestas had a £3.5million grant to set up the production facility a few years ago which they are now closing.
Why are the goverment giving grants with out true long term comitment?
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