50 years ago the workers at Lucas Aerospace produced an Alternative Plan as a response to threatened job losses and restructuring. The plan was developed by the Joint Shop Stewards Combine, representing staff and manual worker unions on all the fifteen sites throughout the U.K. The Combine had been established to help great an effective united movement which could resist management's efforts to use divide and rule tactics. ---- From: https://lucasplan.co.uk/ ---- "Around half of Lucas Aerospace output supplied military contracts. Since this depended upon public funding, as did many of the civilian contracts, 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.
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 requesting product suggestions which answered a social need and could be produced using the workforces existing skills and plant technology. 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.150 product ideas were put forward by the workforce. From them, products were selected to fall into six categories: medical equipment, transport vehicles, improved braking systems, energy conservation, oceanics, and telechiric (robotics) 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. The Combine 'regarded it was scandalous that people could be dying for the want of a kidney machine when those who could be producing them are facing the prospect of redundancy'. In the energy sector, proposals included the development of 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. Later, the Combine produced a road-rail bus, which toured the country."
The plan was rejected. The company refused to change from their aerospace focus and the government did nothing to put pressure on this public-funded company. 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. It is clear then, as now, that profits come before any strategy to produce products that are actually useful, and cause no harm.
The current situation, with war fever and a climate emergency, shows that the vision of the Lucas Aerospace workers is needed more than ever. The anti-war and environmental movements are largely separate from workplace organising. However, the movement for the necessary revolutionary change must be a united one, based firmly in the working class and willing to not only make demands of government but to challenge capitalism directly. Those at the point of production, who have the power to bring everything to a halt, have a critical role. Imagine port workers refusing to let imported Brazilian soya into the country. Imagine the fossil fuel workers refusing to work anymore and demanding full pay until they get alternative jobs.
Unfortunately, many in the current trade union movement, in particular Sharon Graham of Unite, fully support any industry as long as it creates jobs. She supports the Third Runway at Heathrow and argues for a rearmament programme. This shows that she is firmly behind capitalism where workers can continue to be exploited producing products that cause misery and destruction for both people and planet.
This is why we need to revitalise the interest in alternative plans, under direct control of the workers, and which incorporate at least a vision of a different society.
Workers at the Belfast shipyards, threatened with closure, have plans for producing infrastructure for renewable energy. In Italy, workers at a closed car factory are putting proposals forward for an alternative green production plan. (https://labourhub.org.uk/2023/12/22/italian-car-workers-fight-for-alternative-green-production-plan/). We can draw on these examples and take them to other workplaces.
https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/jackdaw_low-res.pdf
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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