Two weeks ago sacked workers on the Isle of Wight, off the British coast, occupied their plant to protest the loss of 600 skilled jobs. The Danish owned transnational Vestas Turbines closed the manufacturing plant and the accompanying research facility claiming that it was unprofitable. This was the only wind turbine manufacturer in Britain.

The factory was producing small land-based wind turbines many of which were being shipped to the United States. And in fact, the owners began moving production to the US last year when they opened a new factory in Colorado.

Britain’s extensive alternative energy program called for larger offshore turbines. These turbines could not be produced at this facility and are imported.

The issues here are complex and significantly cut across several competing agendas: the retention of skilled clean energy jobs, the development of a government program to expand the use of smaller turbines, local opposition to wind farms based on issues of retaining pristine landscapes and, finally, and most importantly, the inadequate program of the labour movement to address these issues.

Let’s take these issues in order. The loss of manufacturing jobs in the UK is more severe than in the US. Britain began sloughing off its skilled workers at a fast rate decades ago and as a country created a financial sector that dominated its economy to a far greater degree than the US.

So the irony of loosing what advocates of re-industrialization call "clean-tech" jobs was not lost on the British public. An encampment of environmentalist outside the gates immediately supported the workers occupying the factory. The national media coverage was extensive and the embarrassed British Labour Party tried fumbling for a response.

Government spokespeople immediately blamed NIMBYism as the villain. While there had been some opposition, representatives of Heritage and Tourism associations complained that the government overstated the issue.

The workers who occupied the second floor administration offices of the plant called for the nationalization of the factory and the retention of all the jobs. The government held talks with the owners and the workers and came up with a subsidy scheme that would retain some jobs and grant some funding to the owners to continue production. This response appeared to be more of a public relations maneuver than a thoughtful proposal and was rejected immediately by the Danish corporation.

Today, Friday August 8th, a court order for eviction was served on the workers who peacefully left the premises to loud applause and shouts of support from 100’s who came to witness the sad spectacle.

Without extensive knowledge of the facts in this case, but from perusal of the press and objective comments by "informed" sources, it seems that the owners accurately stated their case that it was unprofitable for them to ship their turbines to the US. And secondly, it is correct that their expectations of a larger market in the UK had not materialized.
 
Given these facts could there have been an "Argentinean Solution"? That is could the workers have, instead of calling for nationalization, restarted production as the workers in Argentina did when they occupied their workplaces?

Could they have taken, in other words, a different approach and tried to solidify their obvious wide-ranging support? If they had stayed in the factory and called upon their supporters on the outside to block police attempts to enter and escalated the issue would it had made a difference?

From the beginning the stage was literally set for a symbolic protest. Of the 600 workers affected only two dozen actually entered the factory to occupy it. And from the beginning they maintained that they wanted to have a peaceful protest. Tactically that assured union support and probably large environmental support also.

But does it follow that the call for nationalization made sense?

What if the demand was that the factory be transformed into a workers co-op, with both the workers and the larger community of the Isle of Wight as joint members of the co-op? Besides the manufacturing section of the facility there is a research and development unit and there lies a possible future for the operation. Using the R&D unit to fine-tune the kind of turbine that would be most useful for local needs offers a both long range potential and a source to funding by a variety of means, private, public and community.

I see this approach as a ground up industrial policy. A real need met by a locally controlled enterprise. We can fantasize that the larger co-op associations in the UK, the retail grocery stores, the housing developments and the agricultural co-ops could take the lead and provide additional support by purchasing turbines to provide clean energy for their operations. Here would be a model of uniting various sectors and polities in a comprehensive economic plan to address jobs, energy needs, climate change, and local re-industrialization.

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