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Lucas Aerospace
Combine Shop
Stewards' Committee

THE LUCAS PLAN AND THE LUCAS AEROSPACE COMBINE SHOP STEWARDS’ COMMITTEE WEBSITE

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WELCOME TO OUR WEBSITE!


Over the last four decades and more since the launch of the Lucas Plan in 1976, acres of print and miles of film have been produced to discuss the Plan and the issues raised within it. The discussion continues, as the issues raised in the Plan are even more pertinent today, and far more urgent, particularly given our environmental problems and the dominance of the arms trade.

Prompted by the conference, organised by the New Lucas Plan Group and held in Birmingham on 26th November 2016 to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the launch of the Plan, we (former Combine members) decided to put some of our own material and memories on line. We felt that a site established by former Combine members was long overdue. New material will be added over time, some previously unpublished, some buried for years. We will be happy to receive material on the Plan and Combine which may be new or lost to us. Additionally the website is to commemorate the Combine’s achievements in the 1970s and to encourage similar “bottom up” initiatives from workers and communities now and in the future. The Combine’s Plan demonstrated that an alternative ‘bottom up’ approach to the use of technology that answers social needs, is more cost effective to the taxpayer and creates more jobs for a given amount of public expenditure.

Hopefully, those who access this site, will be able to apply a similar approach when faced with the same problems as the Lucas workers all those years ago. We believe our process is applicable to most situations. If the information on this website helps workers or community activists provide an answer to the problems they face, it will have achieved a major objective.

This website is dedicated to the Lucas Aerospace workforce and their supporters – without their socially useful productive ideas, the Combine Shop Stewards’ Committee would not have been able to draw up the their alternative Plan.

For the record, the original title of the Lucas Plan, as it is now known is: ‘Corporate Plan: a contingency strategy as a positive alternative to recession and redundancies’

The content of the website has been compiled by former Combine members Phil Asquith, John Routley and Brian Salisbury, with the support of Mike Cooney, Bob Dodd and Ron Mills and the inspiration of the late Mike Cooley, Ernie Scarbrow and Danny Conroy. If there are any other surviving members of the Combine out there please get in touch via the Contact Us tab. We will be delighted to hear from you.

We want to give a special thank you to

UNISON WEST MIDLANDS FIRE SERVICE BRANCH

which has kindly sponsored the Development of this Web Site.

THE HISTORY OF THE LUCAS AEROSPACE COMBINE SHOP STEWARDS’ COMMITTEE

‘Without the Combine there wouldn’t have been a Lucas Plan’

Lucas Aerospace, a part of the Lucas Industries Group, was a major manufacturer of aerospace components. It employed 18,000 highly skilled manual and staff workers on its 17 sites. The workforce had a strong and effective trade union representation involving 12 manual and staff trade unions. Because Lucas Aerospace management made corporate decisions centrally, the shop stewards realised that the multi trade union structure that existed made it difficult for the workforce, through its elected representatives, to respond in a coherent manner. So the democratically elected senior stewards of both manual and staff unions from all the Lucas Aerospace sites combined and formed a committee which was representative of the entire workforce.


The Lucas Aerospace Combine Shop Stewards’ Committee was an addition to the existing trade union structure, ensuring that individual unions retained their own autonomy and negotiating rights. Liaison or joint shop stewards’ committees also operated on most sites, again dealing with issues of a common nature. The Combine met on a regular basis with any recommendations reached being reported back to the individual sites for decisions to be reached democratically. Between meetings, liaison took place between sites by telephone. Information was shared and when necessary, support was given to individual sites.

The Combine was effective in preventing management playing one site off against another. Although not an official negotiating body, the Combine through information sharing, provided support when necessary. It proved to be an effective trade union body and a thorn in the side of management. In its strategy development role, the Combine enabled individual craft unions to negotiate from a position of strength. As the Combine’s influence grew, it played a major role in improving both works’ and staff pensions, drawing on the knowledge of individuals within the workforce who, although not employed in the pension field, had a natural expertise, which they provided voluntarily to aid the members. For more details of the formation of the Combine and the politics surrounding it, we recommend Hilary Wainwright and Dave Elliott’s book, The Lucas Plan – a new trade unionism in the making?

In the early 1970s the national aerospace Industry was being restructured, actively encouraged by Government. The Combine could see that Lucas Aerospace would be affected. During an historic meeting in November 1974 with Tony Benn, the Government’s Secretary of State for Industry, the Combine was encouraged to develop an alternative strategy for the company. When the Combine next met it decided to draw up an alternative Corporate Plan with the full involvement of the Lucas Aerospace workforce. For a more detailed account of the evolution of the Combine click https://www.lucasaerospacecombine.co.uk/p/the-combine.html