workforce over the past eight years.
The factories should enormous social needs which tion for profit leaves unmet. And it is this which has helped to generate the will to resist redundancies This Is a new approach to the probiem, although previous examples elsewhere. WORLES ALL WELL DOSEC ICRE 1950%, for instance, to demand that the LOTS DOMIC SACLES THIE BIAR luxury cars. But Lucas is a pilot case in The Lucas Plan is based on an explicit critique of capitalism. authors reject the standard bourgeois explanations for redundancy mysteries of the balance of payments, foreign competition, too many foreign The Lucas stewards TELL MARTY D COMMERCIS SHUELCHAAEY It arises not through lack of "demand" for moods. but because tree entesprise doesn"t find it profitable to mices the real needs and demands of society. Instead it casts workers and machines aside as 'redundant'.
Despite this, the revolutionary left has been slow in organising support for the Corporate generalised the idea to other places strategies have obviously failed. meet the Yet it seldom makes productruth in them?
Italian to class collaboration.
LETE La gloritied suggestion scheme.
the company.
Say that CONSULTATION has refased consultation schemes. management exchange TOOLMA COOL LOI objections and doubts hehind its lack of enthusiasm. These objections should be voiced, What are they? And is there any First, it is sometimes suggested that demands for alternative produck lead This would be accepted WOEKCIS management objectives and constraints - the company's profit rates. In such a case, the Plan would be little more than But the Lucas workers have explicitly drawn up their proposals on the basis of untiet social noods which they have the skill and machinery to fulfil Tbe proposes, more onen wan marcial directly with the priorities of the In addition, the combine committee in which 2010 WALILLY and information as Thiss timet response of But the Lucas workers have insisted that the Plan should bi suhject to collective hargaining.
The stewards believe that mean as made manageme le Plan bas managemen! reluctant to try out certain individua proposals which in thinks could be made profitable, for Tear of handing the workers i victory and opening a Pandora's box.
ANTI-SOCIAL The stewards also rocognise that the Plan depends on government spending to meet social needs Consequently purely company-wide organisation 35 sutficient. political movement Is a necessaty combine CUTTLEL activity.
The second objection is that workers plans are a diversion from the main socialist objective of social ownership under workers control. However, the fight for workers plans is one of the best ways of strengtheming the tight tor social ownership and workers control The attempts of the capitalists and financiers to resist plans drawn up by workers on the basis of soc Dow clearly reveal the anti-social nature of private ownership They make a far more powerful case social ownership After the experience in the mines, in steel, and on the railways in shiphuilding and at British Lesland their - the demand for nationalisation, and with it the idea of socialism, has lost much of is power to mispure mass action.
The attempt to dil'ferestiate what socialists neun adding under workers contral often appears an empty abstraction.
Worken plans, however, give real meaning lo theidea of social ownership and workers control. For control in the nationalised sector would then have a definile purpose.
Instead of being simply a defensive measure, workers control would aim lo reorganise industry to meer social needs on the basis of a clcar plan.
pians also heips organisations able to impose workers control and planning from below in the socialised industry of the future And this objection: that simply interesting toy rear bite few experts and put lorward name of a workers organisation whose going on, and perhaps don't really care. workers Of course there is always a danger of loss of pay and with no productivity -THE EV cran experience. nationalisation nationalisation by body. operator.
ГЛІНТаН build hoth; airships.
brings us to the third workers URIE •ATE sections of workors the social sense Elsewhere, will ask La 35-hour not in the exchanges they different dark.
Finally, Redundancies are nor This was vital in building the determination lo resist redundancie and conviscing the workers that chere is a future to fight lor The discussions and questionaire atthe minars led workersto question LIH constraints of the market, the crisis, and government policies from thei They had experience of needs among LUCAS PLAN PROPOSALS:
1. Telecheirie machines electro mechanient extensions to the humar remotely controlled by the covironments, estending rather than reducing the role of human skills Transport systems lightweight vehicles: hyhrid internal combustion hattery-powered vebicles combining the best characteristics of Braking systenes safe systems fut both road and rail vehicles. 4. Allerative energy sources mind electrical output or direct hearing: thes and heat pumps could provide low cos beating for council houses.
perfulnde life SOMEONE CELERACIE for ambulances: kidne aids for the disabled sight-substituting aids for the blind. created at the same rate.
workers are stil daing overtime. For them, 35 hours, bi adjusting the basic tate, is a way o boosting their overtune carning Insectors where there is as yes Bittle ar no threat of redundancy, the 35-hour week might be a welcome advance - CANE AOTALIS LE extra leisure Which Sieve Potter wrot about recently in Socialist Challenge workers are on shor time. What's the use of' a 35-hour wee when we're on a fluce day week. the DISCO ACHE steelmaking plant in Scotland which i Being completely sbut down in favou tew oxygen-uxing plant Scunthorpe or South Wales Or, for wat matter, in the telephon where some warkers fee would need somerbing like a twenty-five haur week in order to cope with the new computerised systems. In these cases, 35 hours is a shot in the whar shout the worker already on the dole? How — where can they he re employed?
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THE LUCAS Combine has attempted massive cutbacks in its At first it was quite successful. Between 1970 and 1975, management chopped the workforce in the Acrospace and Defence divisions from 18,000 to under 12,000. But since 1975, its job cutting has come to a halt. HILARY WAINWRIGHT elaborates.