Interview with Vestas worker


Ian Terry, one of the Vestas workers occupying their wind turbine factory on the Isle of Wight, spoke to The Socialist on Friday, 24 July.

“We’ve got to go to court on 29 July where the company will put their case forward for reclaiming the property on the grounds of trespass. We are allowed to send representatives to put our case and it looks like the RMT will help us.

Bob Crow gave an inspirational speech last night when he came down, there was a lot of passion in it.

And the mood of all of us in the occupation was brilliant. This morning we heard that Vestas are putting around that they can’t process the redundancy package because we’re in the offices and they need the stuff. But we have told them to give us a list of what they need and we’ll give it to them.

At the end of the day they don’t need the office, they only need files and papers. There’s no internet access in here so it’s not like they need the network.

They have tried this on before. Earlier in the week they said they couldn’t process our wages this month because they’re in the office. But everyone knew this wasn’t true because it was the 21st and everything gets processed on the 15th of the month. Then all of a sudden Vestas decided they could do it remotely after all.

We don’t want to be portrayed as being selfish and stopping people being paid their redundancy. But in my opinion our campaign is too big for people to start thinking that about us now.

I’ve worked here just over two years, I’m a finisher. We tidy up the blades once they’re put together. I’m also trained to build the blades. There is quite a young workforce.

But the maximum I’ve heard of anyone getting in redundancy is about £15,000 which isn’t very much, that’s talking about people with nine years service. Especially when the MPs and bankers are sitting pretty.

In my opinion in a recession on an island where there is no jobs, that’s just not good enough. I’m only getting three weeks pay for doing two years work.

It’s not like the company is failing or making a loss over here. They’re just chasing a bigger profit by moving production to America and China.

It’s clear to us over here that what the government say and what they do are two different things. They say they will cut through the red tape and get x amount of wind turbines up. So there is no reason for the company to walk away now.

Tell as many people as possible about this. There is no reason to close this factory.”

Please send messages of support to: [email protected]