Mike Cooley

Career in aerospace and the Lucas Plan

Mike Cooley (1934-2020) worked for many years in the aerospace industry as a senior design engineer and was an active trade unionist.

In the early 1970s, Cooley became one of the pioneers of the now-famous Lucas Workers’ Corporate Plan, whereby Lucas workers threatened strikes unless they were allowed to draw up their plan for socially useful production. They came up with a list of 150 products that they and Lucas could produce, including kidney dialysis machines and heat pumps. The plan was published in 1976 and, while it was eventually rejected by Lucas’s management, it had a great impact on the workers’ movement and other circles both in the UK and abroad.

It led to the establishment of the Centre for Alternative Industrial and Technological Systems and similar units elsewhere in Britain. It has also resulted in worker plans in other industries. Moreover, most of the technical ideas in the Plan have proved viable and have been produced, though often with less emphasis on their social usefulness than the Plan envisaged.

Post-Lucas career and contributions to human-centred systems

In 1980, Lucas sacked Cooley, alleging he spent too much time on union business or concerns of society as a whole.

After leaving Lucas, Cooley became Director of the Technology Division of the Greater London Enterprise Board (GLEB), which was set up to combat unemployment in the capital and where he organised the London Technology networks. These networks linked community groups, universities and polytechnics to develop ecologically desirable products and systems, which could then be used to establish new small businesses and cooperatives.

From his GLEB base, Cooley supported several independent but related projects. These included:

• The London Innovation Trust to support the development of prototype products, particularly for the disabled and disadvantaged;
• Twin Trading to promote fair and mutually supportive trade between industrial and non-industrial countries; and
• ESPRIT Project 1217, which designed and produced a human-centred advanced manufacturing system that valued human skills rather than diminishing and subordinating them to machines.

Through this, Cooley pioneered the concept of human-centred systems and helped set up the International Institute for Advanced Research into Human-Centred Systems, of which he was also president.

Global influence and legacy

Cooley regarded unemployment as one of the most severe issues confronting societies worldwide and got involved in many job creation schemes. He set up the London Business Village, where some 1,500 new jobs were created, and he helped found a non-profit called the Product Bank (The Technology Exchange) that listed 5,000 products and services available for licensing. The Product Bank became the largest technology transfer organisation in the world, handling some 500 contracts each month in over 70 countries.

Cooley lectured worldwide and was a visiting lecturer at universities in multiple countries. He created several television and radio programmes, and his writings have been translated into over 20 languages.

Cooley passed away on September 4, 2020, following a long illness.

In 2021, the remaining members of the Lucas Aerospace Combine decided to launch a website detailing their history and the Lucas Plan campaign to assist trade unionists, activists, and organisations drawing on this wealth of experience.