The Past is Present: History is Organizing With Us Now

General Strike Commemoration march. Photo by Stanley Flanders Arlidge.

The workers who built Britain’s warplanes in 1976 had a problem. Their factory was about to close. Instead of conceding to a “downsizing”, they did something radical: they drew up a plan. Not a grievance or a strike notice, a plan; 150 products their hands and minds could make instead of fighter jets: solar panels, kidney dialysis machines, vehicles for people with disabilities, electric buses. “Socially useful work”, they called it.