Mike Cooley (engineer)

Michael Joseph Edward Cooley (23 March 1934 – 4 September 2020 ) was an Irish-born engineer, writer and trade union leader, best known for his work on the social effects of technology, "Socially Useful Production" and "Human Centred Systems".

Michael Joseph Edward Cooley was born on 23 March 1934 in Tuam, Ireland, where he attended the Christian Brothers School and was classmates with the playwright Tom Murphy and the trade unionist Mick Brennan.

Upon leaving school he was an apprentice at the Tuam Sugar Factory, where he worked as a welder and fitter.

He began learning German in his spare time under the auspices of a Viennese work colleague's wife, and in the mid-1950s moved to Germany to study mechanical engineering at the University of Bremen.

Following a period working for the engineering firm Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon in Zurich, in 1957 Cooley arrived in London, where he worked for the aeronautics manufacturer de Havilland before joining Lucas Aerospace as a design engineer in 1962.

He later gained a PhD in computer-aided design at the North East London Polytechnic (now the University of East London), and was a visiting professor at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST).

Cooley's political sympathies were always of the anti-capitalist left, having been an admirer of James Connolly from a young age.

Cooley married Shirley Pullen in 1961, with whom he had two children.

In Britain, he was initially a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), but left that organisation before becoming a founder member of the Maoist Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) (CPB-ML) in 1968.

He was involved in workplace activism at the British company Lucas Aerospace in the late 1970s.

In the late 1970s, Mike Cooley was a senior designer at Lucas Aerospace, and chaired the local branch of the technical trade union Technical, Administrative and Supervisory Section (TASS).

He was one of the militant activists behind The Lucas Plan, a radical strategy to avoid workforce layoffs by converting production at Lucas from armaments to civilian products.

The plan's aim was to replace weapons manufacture with the development of socially useful goods, like solar heating equipment, artificial kidneys, and systems for intermodal transportation.

The goal was to not simply retain jobs, but to design the work so that the workers would be motivated by the social value of their activities.

In 1980, Cooley published Architect or Bee? a critique of the automation and computerisation of engineering work.

The book alludes to a comparison made by Karl Marx on the creative achievements of human imagination.

According to Orlando Hill, "Mike Cooley’s Architect or Bee? put the case that a new organisation of technology could provide social good rather than profit".

He goes on to say: "Cooley argues that if we are going to move from merrily producing commodities to producing goods that people need and want, we must change our attitude towards technology. The technology used today evolved from the concept of the division of labour. In a capitalist system in which the maximization of profit is the sole objective and people are regarded as units of labour-power, the division of labour and fragmentation of skills is absolutely rational and scientific. However, the consequence is the deskilling of workers and alienation from reality. A division between theory and practice is created with a bias towards theoretical knowledge. The skill and practical knowledge of the worker is despised."

Cooley's work on human-centred systems and socially useful production was compiled and first published by Shirley Cooley, Mike's wife, in 1980 (Hand & Brain publications); the second edition was published in the US in 1982 by South End Press with an introduction from MIT Professor David Noble and was followed by a new edition published by Hogarth Press in 1987 with an introduction by Anthony Barnett.

In 1981, he was a recipient of the Right Livelihood Award for "designing and promoting the theory and practice of human-centred, socially useful production."

Cooley held several leadership positions in the field of computer-aided design (CAD) and was an advisor on numerous public and private sector projects.

He was the founding president of the International Research Institute in Human Centred Systems (IRIHCS) and the international Journal AI & Society, and founding director of the Greater London Enterprise Board.

He published over 100 scientific papers and fifteen books, and was a guest lecturer at universities in Europe, Australia, the US and Japan.

His book Architect or Bee? has been translated into six languages.

As Cooley put it "the workers are the experts”. The proposals of the alternative plan were not accepted by Lucas management and Cooley was 'effectively' dismissed in 1981, allegedly for spending excessive time upon union business and "concerns of society as a whole". After leaving Lucas he was appointed Technology Director of the Greater London Council.

Ken Livingstone and Mike Cooley founded the Greater London Enterprise Board (GLEB) in 1982, which was an industrial development and job creation agency set up by the GLC to create employment by investing in the industrial regeneration of London, with the funds provided by the council, its workers' pension fund and the financial markets.

During the first two years of the enterprise board's existence the Greater London council provided a total annual budget of around £30 million, made up of some £20 million section 137 funds and £10 million section 3 mortgage loan facilities.

In 1983 Cooley appeared in “Farewell to Work?” produced for Channel Four by Udi Eichler of Brook Productions.

Frank Dobson in Hansard wrote in 1985 when GLEB was under threat of closure, "The Government are not worried because the GLEB has been a failure; they are worried because it has been a success".

The GLEB became independent in 1986 when the GLC was abolished; it changed its name to Greater London Enterprise (GLE) and funded its activities from its income.

Mike Cooley was the founding chairman of AI & Society, an international forum for socially responsible technology founded in 1987 that focuses on ‘societal issues".(Springer, 2018).

Cooley's book Delinquent Genius: The Strange Affair of Man and His Technology (1992; published 2018) explores the relationship between mankind and technology development.

The book analyses the social impact of technology and the dangers of accepting the "one best" scientific idea of progress.

According to Adrian Smith, Professor of Technology & Society at the University of Sussex, Cooley looks at "vantage points for realising neglected human purposes – such as creative work and environmental sustainability – through technology."

Smith said its chapters "look upon a period of intense restructuring in the industrial manufacturing landscape, whose effects are still felt today".

The current edition was published by Spokesman Books in 2016 and has an introduction by Frances O’Grady the General Secretary of the TUC.

The book has been translated into over 20 languages including Finnish, Irish and Chinese.

In Architect or Bee?, Cooley coined the term "human-centred systems" in the context of the transition in his profession from traditional drafting at a drawing board to computer-aided design.

Human-centred systems, as used in economics, computing and design, aim to preserve or enhance human skills, in both manual and office work, in environments in which technology tends to undermine the skills that people use in their work.

He died on 4 September 2020 in Slough, Berkshire, aged 86.