In the labour organisation.
their Corporate Plan to labour movement. THE Lucas Corporate Plan has won support incredibly wide range of people and organisations.
So persuasive is its message — the right to work on socially products Industry Minister Gerald Kaufman was forced to say in the House of Commons on 12 June last year that 'Ministers have consistently welcomed the initiative of the Lucas Aerospace stewards.
Yet Kaufman made this remark In the LOUISC announcing government aid of E8m to Lucas Aerospace (LA)
• a mere tree monens arter the company had decided to make 2,000 workers redundant.
Since the early 1970s, workforce in known as the Engine Mangement Division has been more or less halved. The new proposals, including the closure of the Liverpool tactory. nearly halve this again.
government's cash hand-out effectively aims to help smoothe the towards eliminating the jobs of highly skilled and able workers.
his is iust one item in a brilliant exposure of Kaufman and the Labour government carried out in the 400-page report produced by the Lucas stewards.
This points out that in the period 1971-77, LA awarded £10.15m of governTHE NAME Lucas Aerospace has become associated movement both multinational management and powerful shop floor The initiative of the Lucas Aerospace Combine Shop Stewards Committee (LACSSC) in producing counter the redundancies has evoked widespread support in the Last year the Labour Party conference unanimously endorsed the plan's central message — defending jobs through asserting 'the right to work on socially useful products'. Workers in other plants and industries are Initiatives like these will be the subject of discussion at the second trade union conference organised by Socialist Challenge on Saturday 28 April. Meanwhile the Lucas stewards have produced a further report *Turning Industrial Decline Into Expansion: A Trade ment money through investment grants, regional development grants and so on - during which time the workforce was cut from 18,000 to 13,000.
Like other major companies, Lucas also receives substantial tax deferrals which amounted that to £75m in 1977-78, £54m in 1976-77, and £31m in 1975-76.
Benevolent as ever, Healey announced in his 1978 Budget speech that most or all of these deferrals will be written off!
This is just part of a close relationship between LA and of the Labour government which goes financial field.
Thus John Williams has been seconded for two vears from his present post of chairperson the Murphy's side-kick at the NEB; HOW while Anthony former Permanent Secretary at ruthless threat of GOOD Financial capitalism thing — the ability to make a At the instance, the stewards counter the company's assertion that a shrinking market is forcing it to undertake the present rationalisation exercise' by saying that, on the contrary, 'there will be great bas stop res Lucas Dennis viding, management has the will and capability to seize them.
Talking about the heat pump project currently under way at Burnley, the report calls for its acceleration and recommends the establishment of a product support, commercial sales and SUICLY engineering back-up team'.
An immediate problem with such positions is that they tend LA deputy to play into the hands of the he Sir eche company's original reply to the Part, Gas HEY PAL WHAT'S THIS /CART /FoR SCRAP from the position consistently advanced by the combine in the past, that 'it is certainly not the assumption of this Corporate Plan that Lucas Aerospace can and transformed into a trailblazer to change this situation in isolation. There can be no responsibility and in the sea irresponsibility and depravity."
Implicit in this was the need for a national plan which could transform the 'sea'. Hence the demand for the nationalisation of LA without compensation and under workers control, to which the LACSSC is formally In formulating its demands SEDONE government however, the report starts from the narrower technical question the finance to get production going.
It concludes this section by • STUPID QUES pointing out the various sections of the Industry Act, Local Employment Act, temporary employment subsidies regional development grants through which a *job security package of aid for a period of up to two years' can be granted.
But ultimately the decisive question is that it is the capitalist system which has created the problems of the Lucas workers. That's the importance of organising the fight for socialist policies in the *The Lucas stewards' 400page report is available from CAITS, North East London Polytechnic, Longbridge Road, Dagenham, Essex RM8 2AS, at £4.50 STOl shop stewards committees -and trade union branches, £10 for individuals and £40 for educational and other institutions.
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now producing their own alternative plans. Union Initiative'.
NATIONAL TRADE UNION CONFERENCE WORKERS Workers' Plans and
THAT'S FOI YOu LOT