The
Lucas Plan, then and now
By
Brian Salisbury,Phil Asquith and John Routley, former members of Lucas Aerospace Combine Shop
Stewards'Committee
2016 was the 40th anniversary of the Lucas Plan, the pioneering plan
by shop stewards at Lucas Aerospace to save their jobs by converting the
company from arms production to socially useful products. The Plan met with
worldwide acclaim, sparking an international movement of workers’ plans, and
was nominated for the Nobel Peace prize in 1979. A conference in Birmingham on
November 26,2016, organised by the New Lucas Plan Working Group (click here) celebrated the anniversary and applied The Plan's ideas to
current challenges including Trident, climate change and artificial
intelligence.
As a result of the Conference, other meetings and conferences have taken place nationally to promote The Plan and relate the concept to current issues.
This is the inside story of the Lucas Aerospace Combine Shop Stewards Corporate Plan.
In the 1960s, the Labour government set up the Industrial
Reorganisation Corporation, with a mandate to encourage company mergers,
investment and rationalisations; the end product for workers was widespread job
losses. Workers found that Harold Wilson's 'white heat of the technological
revolution' was simply burning up their jobs. Additionally the principles of 'Taylorism',
the fragmentation and deskilling of the production and design processes to
reduce workers' power and bargaining strength was being implemented on a wide
scale. All of these factors impacted upon us at Lucas Aerospace. Compounded by
Labour's manifesto of 1974 pledged to defence cuts, there seemed much more
grief to come.
Due to the lack of a coherent trade union voice at national level the Lucas Aerospace senior shop stewards decided to set up a Combine,
which was a representative body of staff and manual worker unions on all the
fifteen sites throughout the U.K. It was established to enable the workforce to have a coherent and unified voice when responding to
managements corporate view on wages, pensions, manning levels and other such
issues. The shop stewards had realised though experience how management had
used divide and rule tactics when negotiating on an individual site and craft
union basis.(for a detailed history of the Combine see the link)
At
our meetings in 1974, we felt confident as a Combine. There had been a number
of successes over the last few years: a successful pensions campaign to begin
to harmonise the works pension scheme with the staff; winning union
representation on the trustees; the establishment of a Science and Technology
Advisory Service and a coordinated campaign (with modest but encouraging
success) for the indexation of wages at a time of record inflation. The major
success was the victory of the Burnley strike, supported by other Lucas
Aerospace Combine sites. However, many of us felt that the underpinning victory
was the Combine's survival and growth in the face of neutrality at best and
hostility at worst, from most of the official trade union establishment.
Following
a period of expansion, in 1974 Lucas Aerospace, along with other aerospace
companies, announced the need to restructure the company as a consequence of "increased international competition and technological change brought about by
the need to introduce new technology". The Labour Party had always had a policy of
reducing defence spending, but this put unions in the position of having to
argue against this, in order to protect their members’ jobs. Workers in the military industries,
therefore, have always been presented with a false choice: weapons production
or the dole, when the real choice should have been between weapons production
or socially useful goods, to enhance people's lives rather than destroy them.
The Combine was determined that we should not lead our members into the same box
canyon - we began to realise that we must devise a realistic alternative to our
present products. We could not argue to sustain the manufacture of products
which were harmful and no longer required.
The Combine argued that state support would be better put to developing
products that society needed, rather than the state supporting workers through
paying redundancy money when they were put out of work.
The
idea of the Combine’s Alternative Corporate Plan came about as a result of a
meeting held with Tony Benn at the Dept. of Industry in November 1974.
Thirty-four Combine delegates met with Benn in an attempt to persuade him to
include Lucas Aerospace in the nationalisation of the aerospace industry. Benn
indicated he did not have the power to include Lucas Aerospace in the
nationalisation proposals; however he suggested that the Combine should draw up
an alternative corporate strategy for the company.
After the Benn meeting the Combine had long and deep
debates on the way forward. The crux of the debate was crystallised by the
Combine's internal liaison officer Ron Mills: the problem that constantly faces
trade unionists is that when they work to the same criteria as the company's
accountants, their impact is inevitably marginal as they become part of the
crisis rather than victims. A workers’ corporate plan would be too, unless we
worked to radically different and unorthodox criteria.
With the key problem defined, the solution became clear.
We should draw up a plan based on our own criteria – a plan to save jobs by
making products to meet the unmet needs of those who suffer from social
deprivation and lack of power.
Mike Cooley brought together the sentiments of many
speakers:
'The only way in which we could be involved in a
corporate plan would be if we grew it up in a way which challenged the private
profit motive of the company and instead talked of social profit. Suppose we
said we wouldn't allow the kidney machines to go (from Lucas Aerospace)?....If
we proposed socially useful products what would be said then?....it is an
insult to our skill .....that we can produce Concorde but not enough....
heaters for ...pensioners who are dying of the cold….the only way we could do
this is to be completely independent of
the company (author’s emphasis)'
There
was a lot of uncertainty about embarking upon a voyage into completely
unchartered waters. There were no trade union manuals, no precedents. We would
be walking a tightrope, but what was the alternative? We would be in a conflict
situation with the Company but we always were. The Plan, when complete, would
have to be placed in a collective bargaining framework. We would have to learn
as we went along but we were used to this.
In any event wouldn’t our members feel let down if we declined,
particularly with the encouragement and support of Tony Benn?
Following
the Combine’s decision to draw up the Plan, work began in January 1975 and took
around a year. Delegates went from the Combine meeting back to their sites to
report and campaign for the acceptance of the decision. It wasn’t easy and
members were still keen on the bread and butter issues – as one Burnley member
pointed out to his convenor, we were on our third Pope since the submission of
the annual wage claim and still no settlement!
Initially the Combine approached outside organisations
for suggested products. After receiving only three replies from 180 outside
bodies, the Combine circulated questionnaires to the workforce. At first sight it looked simple enough, asking
for inventories of machine tools, workforce composition and skills. However the
questionnaire also asked for alternative products and alternative ways of running the factory. This really made the
stewards and staff reps think in completely new ways. Machine tool inventories
and skill mix were used for planning and this was done by management as a
business function. To produce the Plan we had to think planning thus
trespassing on the management’s fiefdom by crossing the great divide! The note we sent out with the questionnaire
indeed encouraged this and stated that ‘the planning process is as important as
the Plan itself because it involves questioning existing assumptions and
generating alternative options.
The
final question asked ‘Are there any socially useful products which your plant
could design and manufacture?’ Emphasis was also to be put on the way the
products were to be made, making sure that workers were not to be deskilled in
the process of producing them.
Some sites including Birmingham and Bradford sent long
lists of suggestions whilst others focussed on one or two. The nature of the process was exemplified at
the Bradford site where over fifty projects were submitted to the Corporate
Plan committee, but the Company’s
suggestion box at the entrance to the factory gathered dust. Ideas came
from diverse sources including frustrated individuals, some non-union, whom had
seen their product proposals rejected by management over the years. One said:
‘my son and his friends see industry as authoritarian and wasteful, lacking in
social purpose. I thought the Corporate Plan would help to overcome that image
so I made a few proposals.’
Most sites established a Corporate Plan committee which
at my site, Burnley, met in the canteen on a Friday afternoon, with the
management’s consent, although this was exceptional as the plan was not
‘official union business’. The committees circulated information and
questionnaires, put up posters and held discussions, often in the pub, and mass
meetings. Members were asked for ideas – their jobs might well depend on the
outcome. Self-interest is a great motivator! A gradual commitment to the
evolving Plan developed over the weeks and months. When redundancies were in
the air in Burnley, I addressed a mass meeting of all 3,500 members from the
local football club centre spot, which overwhelmingly accepted the joint shop
stewards’ recommendation to base our fight on the Alternative Plan.
Dozens of product ideas were put forward by the Lucas Aerospace workforce and its supporters. From them, products were
selected to fall into six categories: medical equipment, transport vehicles,
improved braking systems, energy conservation, oceanics, and telechiric
machines. Specific proposals included, in the medical sector, an expansion of
40% in the production of kidney dialysis machines, which at that time were
being manufactured on one of the L.A. sites. In the energy sector, proposals
included the development of ahead-of-their time environmentally sound products
like heat pumps, solar cell technology, wind turbines and fuel cell technology.
In transport, a new hybrid power pack for motor vehicles and road-rail
vehicles(click here to see how a modern hybrid engine works). Later, the Combine produced a road-rail bus, which toured the
country.
The
proposals were rejected out of hand by L.A. management, indicating they would
not diversify from aerospace work, even though they had clearly indicated that
aerospace work was in decline. Of course, they felt (rightly!) that the Alternative Plan
threatened their ‘right to manage’.
The
Combine’s Alternative Corporate Plan received worldwide support from a
multitude of organisations including those who would not normally support trade
union activity. Combine shop stewards attended numerous meetings in the U.K.
and visits abroad to Sweden, Germany, Australia and USA. In 1981, Mike Cooley,
a member of the Combine, received the Right Livelihood award, the money from
which he donated to the Combine.
While
individual Trade Unions and the Labour Government supported the Combine’s Plan
in principle, there was neither the structures in place, nor the political
will, to put pressure on Lucas Aerospace management to negotiate with the
Combine to implement the Plan. An opportunity was lost to make a company
receiving public money accountable to the community in which it served.
Forty
years on, the products we put forward in our workers’ plan are now mainstream.
Two examples (there are numerous others) of this are the production of hybrid
power packs by most vehicle manufacturers and the contribution wind turbines,
both onshore and offshore, make to our renewable energy needs.
Meanwhile
Lucas Aerospace, as a company in its own right, no longer exists, parts of it
having been sold off, while other parts no longer exist. Like other UK-based
manufacturing companies, Lucas Aerospace was a victim of poor, unaccountable
management, and a sad lack of successive governments’ industrial strategy.
The
issues of technology and arms conversion raised in the Lucas Plan are even more
relevant today. We showed how people’s
livelihoods can be safeguarded without relying on socially and environmentally
harmful industries, and that workers have the know-how to achieve that. Forty years on it’s heartening to see that
the Plan has withstood the test of time and that a younger generation of people
are carrying it forward in the form of the New Lucas Plan working group.
Meanwhile the Birmingham conference organisers looked at the new agenda for how
trade unions can work with communities for socially useful production and
democratic planning, in order to create a sustainable and just society.
We encouraged BEA members to identify potential product ideas among themselves, as LACSSC had done in the Corporate PLAN.
One of the earlier products was a design for a Bath Aid, to help children with mobility problems take a Bath. It used a simple cord system to lower and lift children into the Bath, it was designed to help bathe disabled children easily and safely whilst helping the parents.
****
The Combine was keen to liberate the taxpayer funded resources of further and higher educational establishments used mainly by the large corporations. Through charitable funding the Combine established the Centre for Alternative Industrial and Technological Resources (CAITS) and UDAP.
UDAP and CAITS are described below
UDAP
LUCAS
AEROSPACE COMBINE COMMITTEE (LACSSC) and the
UNIT
for the DEVELOPMENT of ALTERNATIVE PRODUCTS (UDAP)
By John Routley a former member of Lucas Aerospace Shop Stewards' Combine Committee
BACKGROUND
The Combine Committee had some success with the
development of some of the Alterative Product ideas identified in the Plan, the
Road Rail Bus and the Heat pump were two prime examples of this.
However, in order to challenge the Lucas Management and
to demonstrate the viability of the Plans strategy of producing Socially Useful
Alternative Products the Combine needed to find a viable partner to help take
the product ideas forward to development and then to be able to test production
viability.
The earlier success that the Combine had with the
collaboration of the North East London Polytechnic (NELP) was instrumental in
shaping the direction of travel for moving this idea forward.
In Birmingham the Engine Management Site Committee were
able to secure funding from the Cadbury Geraldine Trust which was matched by
the then West Midlands County Council to pursue a partnership with a University
for the Development of the Combines Alternative products.
Primarily, Brian Salisbury, John Routley and Bob Dodd
approached a number of Universities within the Midlands seeking to create a
Centre for Alternative product Development. It became clear that although Staff
in some institutions were very keen to work with the Combine the Lucas
Management had directly intervened to block such partnership activity. In one
case Combine representatives was told privately that, if collaboration did take
place, Lucas would withdraw existing financial activities from their
University.
UDAP
Because the Combine had, a very positive relationship
with the North East London Polytechnic the Combine members decided to approach a
number of local West Midlands Polytechnic has to move things forward rather
than continue attempting to lure a University partnership.
Finally, the Combine representatives met with senior
staff from Coventry (Lanchester) Polytechnic. The Polytechnic had a substantial
record of accomplishment of working with local businesses in the Motor
industry. Equally significantly was the fact that Coventry had a large number of defence and arms industry links within the city. Eventually agreement
was reached to create The Unit for the Development of Alternative Products
(UDAP).
UDAP, was housed in the Department of Combined Engineering,
which offered a wide range of disciplines from Design, Electrical, Mechanical,
Electronic and Pneumatic engineering.
The principle was that Final Year Graduate Students would
work alongside UDAP Staff to support the Development of Alternative products as
part of their final Year degree course work. Prior to the arrival of UDAP, many
students simply worked on off the shelf Academic activities.
From a Combines perspective, what UDAP created was an
opportunity for a socially useful learning and development experience for
Students and Staff, whilst helping to develop Alternative Socially useful Products
identified in the PLAN.
UDAP’s management team originally consisted of Two Senior
Polytechnic Managers from the Department, Two Combine Committee Shop Stewards,
Cadbury Geraldine Trust and a representative from West Midlands County Council.
UDAP
PRODUCTS
UDAP Staff, working alongside Engineering students, successfully designed a number of the product ideas contained within the PLAN.
UDAP were proud to build an Electrical Vehicle, it was
Road tested which was registered through the Department of Transport to be
driven on our main roads.
The
UDAP Electric Vehicle ahead of its time and a great ambassador for the Lucas
Combine Shop Stewards Committee Vision from the PLAN
Another great success was the design and build of a
Portable Iron Lung, made from Fibre Glass that could be fitted on to any Single
bed, then operated from Home. This model was the first new design ever created sine
the original one was built some 50 years earlier.
UDAP staff were able to share product ideas with existing
organisations who were already working on socially useful products that were
aligned to the ides contained within the PLAN.
For example, the UDAP staff held meetings with Staff at
the Centre for Alternative Energy in Machynlleth, which was founded in 1973 who
were working on Wind and Solar ideas at that time. Staff from Oxfam were
involved in Water filtration.
UDAP convened a national conference of all these agencies
to discuss how greater collaboration could be created, mainly to avoid
duplication of research and a waste of valuable resources.
The students and staff of the Faculty of Combined
engineering also created new product ideas alongside UDAP Staff. At this point
UDAP began working alongside Coventry’s Cooperative Development Agency in
partnership with the West Midlands County Council to support unemployed groups
who wanted support with product development to go into business as
cooperatives.
BRITISH AEROSPACE BITTESWELL
UDAP were approached by Coventry Cooperative Development Agency to support a group of staff who were made redundant from British Aerospace at Bitteswell.
Following the Plant closure they had decided to form a Cooperative, the group decided to call themselves the Bitteswell Employment Agency (BEA). Their Plan was to support redundant colleagues into employment by finding products they could manufacture. UDAP's Staff supported by the department of combined Engineering students worked alongside the BEA members helping them to design and develop a number of products.
BRITISH AEROSPACE BITTESWELL
UDAP were approached by Coventry Cooperative Development Agency to support a group of staff who were made redundant from British Aerospace at Bitteswell.
Following the Plant closure they had decided to form a Cooperative, the group decided to call themselves the Bitteswell Employment Agency (BEA). Their Plan was to support redundant colleagues into employment by finding products they could manufacture. UDAP's Staff supported by the department of combined Engineering students worked alongside the BEA members helping them to design and develop a number of products.
We encouraged BEA members to identify potential product ideas among themselves, as LACSSC had done in the Corporate PLAN.
One of the earlier products was a design for a Bath Aid, to help children with mobility problems take a Bath. It used a simple cord system to lower and lift children into the Bath, it was designed to help bathe disabled children easily and safely whilst helping the parents.
Called the BEALIFT it was a popular product. Just like
the Combines Corporate PLAN the idea came from a member of the BEA staff who
knew a disabled child whose parents were having difficulty bathing their child. It ticked all the boxes by being socially useful in its production method, materials and end use.
Following on from this UDAP and BEA developed a JIFFY light weight Truck. The long term goal was to convert it into a Hybrid Petrol and Battery powered vehicle.
The BEA Jiffy Truck
With sponsorship from the Coventry Cooperative Agency and West Midlands County Council UDAP helped BEA create a Stand for a special London Olympia Exhibition, and take the products down to London for a 3 day exhibition. UDAP called upon a range of marketing and design Students to produce the stand along side BEA staff.
BEA Staff on their Stand at Olympia 1982
(Note the foreground Logo with the image of an Aircraft maintaining the links to the BEA cooperatives Aerospace roots)
UDAP and BEA staff meeting Labour Leader Neil Kinnock on the BEA Stand
( John Routley former Lucas Combine committee member with hands in back pocket) 1982
Another group of workers was made redundant from Alfred Herbert’s, a major Machine Tool manufacture in Coventry. This group also decided to form a Cooperative. UDAP supported them with product ideas. One of which was to purchase redundant Machine tools, refurbish them and supply to new start up companies. One key initiative was to create a fully functional workshop inside a shipping container that could be transported to anywhere in the world that needed to build its local infrastructure.
Following on from this UDAP and BEA developed a JIFFY light weight Truck. The long term goal was to convert it into a Hybrid Petrol and Battery powered vehicle.
The BEA Jiffy Truck
With sponsorship from the Coventry Cooperative Agency and West Midlands County Council UDAP helped BEA create a Stand for a special London Olympia Exhibition, and take the products down to London for a 3 day exhibition. UDAP called upon a range of marketing and design Students to produce the stand along side BEA staff.
BEA Staff on their Stand at Olympia 1982
(Note the foreground Logo with the image of an Aircraft maintaining the links to the BEA cooperatives Aerospace roots)
( John Routley former Lucas Combine committee member with hands in back pocket) 1982
Another group of workers was made redundant from Alfred Herbert’s, a major Machine Tool manufacture in Coventry. This group also decided to form a Cooperative. UDAP supported them with product ideas. One of which was to purchase redundant Machine tools, refurbish them and supply to new start up companies. One key initiative was to create a fully functional workshop inside a shipping container that could be transported to anywhere in the world that needed to build its local infrastructure.
UDAP worked on projects for Eritrean people who had been
in the middle of a civil war and were desperate for support. Projects such as designing
equipment for creating fuel bricks from waste paper. Methods extraction of Rapeseed
Oil, as well as literally converting spare parts from downed MIG Fighters into
everyday utensils, which was a real Sword to Ploughshares project.
Unfortunately, UDAP closed down in the late 1980s due to
lack of funding, however the principle of joining the resour
What was integral when supporting these groups was to use the opportunities to support the development of individuals and re skill them during the process so that they could take things forward themselves. More importantly to give them ownership.
John Routley having helped set up UDAP with Brian Sailsbury and Bob Dodd left Lucas Aerospace and joined UDAP around 1982 as the Technical Liaison Officer.
When I joined UDAP it was quite a cultural shock for me. Having worked in Industry from leaving school in 1968 it was difficult to fully understand the workings of Academia. The snobbery hit me on day one when I was introduced to my new colleagues in the Staff room. I had only ever known works canteens and I had never been classed as Staff at anytime in my life.
As i went round the room meeting the staff one particular Colleague shook my hand rather limply and said "I am Dr ***** of Oxford" I then replied "I am John Routley, of Billesley Secondary Modern".
I also started drinking Coffee, and my usual Bacon Butties became a thing of the past.
During my time at UDAP I has so many positive experiences. Some Lecturers gave total commitment to the principles of Socially useful products, this cascaded down to Students, some of whom joined the cooperative movement after completing their degrees to carry on developing these products.
It was proven to me that Academia and our brilliant Students are a valuable resource that needs to be in the forefront of the future strategic planning for the Green Ecological movement as well as supporting workers in the defence Industries in developing alternative Products to maintain Jobs.
After 5 years I left UDAP and moved more into education myself. However on my last day I went to say good bye to our Head of Department and Head of the Faculty who was Dean, when I was told his name was Bill I did not believe it. I had never realised that Dean was his position and not his name.
I blame the Induction programme rather than my ignorance!
(December 2019)
What was integral when supporting these groups was to use the opportunities to support the development of individuals and re skill them during the process so that they could take things forward themselves. More importantly to give them ownership.
John Routley having helped set up UDAP with Brian Sailsbury and Bob Dodd left Lucas Aerospace and joined UDAP around 1982 as the Technical Liaison Officer.
When I joined UDAP it was quite a cultural shock for me. Having worked in Industry from leaving school in 1968 it was difficult to fully understand the workings of Academia. The snobbery hit me on day one when I was introduced to my new colleagues in the Staff room. I had only ever known works canteens and I had never been classed as Staff at anytime in my life.
As i went round the room meeting the staff one particular Colleague shook my hand rather limply and said "I am Dr ***** of Oxford" I then replied "I am John Routley, of Billesley Secondary Modern".
I also started drinking Coffee, and my usual Bacon Butties became a thing of the past.
During my time at UDAP I has so many positive experiences. Some Lecturers gave total commitment to the principles of Socially useful products, this cascaded down to Students, some of whom joined the cooperative movement after completing their degrees to carry on developing these products.
It was proven to me that Academia and our brilliant Students are a valuable resource that needs to be in the forefront of the future strategic planning for the Green Ecological movement as well as supporting workers in the defence Industries in developing alternative Products to maintain Jobs.
After 5 years I left UDAP and moved more into education myself. However on my last day I went to say good bye to our Head of Department and Head of the Faculty who was Dean, when I was told his name was Bill I did not believe it. I had never realised that Dean was his position and not his name.
I blame the Induction programme rather than my ignorance!
(December 2019)
