The Lucas Plan

rdf:langString The Lucas Plan

rdf:langString The Lucas Plan was a January 1976 document produced by the workers of Lucas Aerospace Corporation. The shop stewards at Lucas Aerospace published an Alternative Plan for the future of their company. The plan was in response to the company’s announcement that thousands of jobs were to be cut to enable industrial restructuring in the face of technological change and international competition. Instead of being made redundant the workforce argued for their right to develop socially useful products. The workers, including Ernie Scarbrow (Combine Secretary), Phil Asquith, Brian Salisbury, Mick Cooney, Danny Conroy, Mike Cooley, Ron Mills, Bob Dodd, John Routley and Terry Moran, argued that state support would be better used developing socially useful products and production than supplying military contracts. To draw up the Plan, shop stewards consulted their members and built the Plan from the knowledge, skills and experience of the workforce. The resulting plan included over 150 designs for alternative products - including wind turbines, hybrid cars, heat pumps and energy efficient houses. Market analyses, economic arguments and training programmes were included in the Plan. The Plan also included outlines to re-organise the workforce into teams combining the workers shop floor tacit knowledge with theoretical engineering from the designers. The plan was met with considerable hostility from the Lucas Aerospace management. Mike Cooley was 'effectively' sacked from Lucas Aerospace in 1981. He later won the Right Livelihood Award for designing and promoting the theory and practice of human-centred, socially useful production.