The five rallies held around the Island yesterday to show support for the redundant Vestas workers (it was made official yesterday) were reported to have gone down really well.
Organisers gathered over 500 signatures on the new petition which will be presented to the Isle of Wight Council when they meet with workers next week and on the fundraising front, they managed to raise over £1000 in just two and a half hours.
We attended the evening rally (video footage to follow) in East Cowes which saw around 120 people gather for the speeches and then march through East Cowes. There was a great response from passersby and people hanging out of their windows whistling with support.
Idiotic driver from Cowes Boatshed
A man driving a car with Cowes Boatshed written on the front, decided that he didn’t want to wait a minute or two for the march to pass by, so drove into the crowd hitting several people in the back of their legs. Thankfully there were no serious injuries.
We managed to capture this all on film so keep your eyes peeled for evidence of his idiotic actions.
Why the heavy Police presence?
The police presence at the rally was unusually large with several wagons as well as police boats on the water.
The Boat Musuem Gallery had boarded up its windows (what kind of scaremongering had they been fed?) and the security guards were out in force – standing by one of the entrances looking as though they were about to stop people going into a nightclub.
We went up to one of them for a friendly chat and were met with rude indifference – quite a contrast to the security guards working at the Newport site.
Those on top of the factory unveiled a new banner and were rewarded with lots of goodies when they lowered a bag on a piece of rope down to supporters.
Another rally is planned for this Saturday in Ryde at 1pm outside the Somerfield store.
More details on another Day of Action planned for 9th September to follow.
