Protesters at Vestas Wind Systems plant fired by food parcel

Peter Walker
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 28 July 2009 23.31 BST

They were given a slice of pizza, an apple and a can of fizzy drink; then the workers holed up inside a wind turbine plant on the Isle of Wight noticed something nasty lurking inside their food parcels.
More than a week into their wildcat occupation of the Vestas Wind Systems plant 11 workers opened letters from the management telling them they had been sacked with immediate effect and without compensation.
The Danish company said it had dismissed members of staff who had been positively identified among the 25 who have occupied the site in a protest at the planned closure, with 625 job losses.
One of the workers said: "We have been half expecting this to happen but there is no way it will stop our campaign and we will be continuing with the occupation."
The RMT union, which is calling for the government to nationalise the plant, condemned the move as "vindictive and aggressive".
Lawyers for Vestas, which plans to shift production of turbine blades to the US, are due to seek a repossession order for the factory in court .
Meanwhile, environmental activists are heading to the island to lend their support in a dispute which has become a symbol of the UK's apparent inability to push through a major expansion in wind power despite the government's recently restated support for the technology.
Numbers joining the "red-green" protests could be significantly boosted after 15,000 people who had bought tickets for the Big Green Gathering festival in Somerset this weekend – cancelled at short notice due to licensing problems – were urged by activists to go to the Isle of Wight instead.
In its letter confirming the dismissals, Vestas said it was struggling to stay competitive in the UK and other northern European markets because of the credit crunch, weak currencies and "a lack of local political action in certain markets" – meaning in the UK the recurrent tendency of many local councils to refuse planning permission for windfarms. In a significant setback to government ambitions to install 10,000 wind turbines by 2020 as part of a pledge a fortnight ago by the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, for the UK to produce a third of its electricity via renewable sources, plans for Europe's largest onshore windfarm project have also been cast into doubt.
The RSPB has lodged a formal objection to the planned 150-turbine plant on Shetland's main island, arguing it could badly affect breeding sites for endangered birds. Scottish Natural Heritage, the government's official conservation adviser, has objected to the scheme on the same grounds.
Research published this week by Greenpeace showed that Conservative-run local councils had turned down more than three times as many windfarms as they approved between December 2005 and November 2008. Labour-controlled councils approved marginally more projects than they turned down.
In yet another blow to the technology's spread in the UK, the chief executive of BP reiterated today that the energy giant would not invest in windfarms here. Tony Hayward said the company preferred to focus on the US.