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Rt. Hon. Peter Mandelson - Former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Jul 1998 - Dec 1998)The CBI London Region Annual Dinner |
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Thank you for those kind words of introduction. It?s great to be with the cream of London?s business community here tonight. I would also like to welcome Minister Jos Chabert and other distinguished guests from Belgium. It?s only Tuesday, but it?s already been quite a week. I?ve even earned myself a new nickname. No longer Prince of Darkness, I am now Postman Pete. I?m not sure which I prefer. But let me make one thing absolutely clear. I have not gone soft on the Post Office. Journalists? understanding hasn?t been helped by the originality of the new structure we are giving the Post Office. However, when the dust settles, I am sure that the pundits will recognise that our action was right, and that the Post Office will go from strength to strength - commercialised, modernised and taking charge of its own destiny. But that?s not what I am here to talk about tonight, which, first off, is London - what a great city it is and what we intend to do to keep it that way. London is my favourite city in the world. After Hartlepool of course. It is a city steeped in history and culture. Yet also one with its eye very clearly on the future, not least because of that world-famous, once-off, unforgettable, not inexpensive project ... the Dome. Rest assured. Work is in hand. The content will be fantastic. Spectacular shows, awe inspiring exhibits. The best Millennium Event anywhere in the world. For Britain, the Millennium experience will be yet another first, adding to all the other reasons why our country and its capital city are one of the world?s leading business and financial centres.
It is a claim we are amply justified in making. For the ninth consecutive year, London has been voted Europe's best city for business. It is best all round, for ease of access to markets, customers and clients. For telecommunications. For quality business space. Even for travel infrastructure and links. But even without surveys, you don?t have to look far to find:
Of course, the global downturn is having its impact, although I am pleased to see surveys showing business confidence as having turned a corner. And developments in technology, globalisation, the introduction of the Euro - to name just three - are changing the markets in which you compete beyond all recognition. To be competitive in this tough new world, London?s business must continuously develop new advanced products and services. Must constantly upgrade established products. And enhance the productivity of business processes. This can only be done, not by politicians making speeches, but through individual firms and companies, big and small, new and mature, applying knowledge, smartness, innovation - to all that they do.
Government will do its bit to help. For example, in London we are creating the new Greater London Authority to bring a strategic focus that has been sadly lacking for 13 years. And to do so in a way which is democratic and fully in line with business priorities, not least by requiring the GLA to consult business. But in the main building prosperity falls to business. Which is why I welcome the CBI?s Fit for the Future campaign, to be launched next week. Its goal - to bring the practices of the average up to those of the best - is one I fully share and therefore the campaign will have strong DTI backing. I urge every company to participate fully. We also want to foster other forms of business to business collaboration. Businesses working together, not as price fixing cartels of course. But to create networks of mutually supportive businesses drawing strength from their shared ambitions in chosen markets, even where they are keen rivals in others. This sort of collaboration will be one of the three C?s at the heart of my White Paper which I am publishing next week. Alongside the need to promote greater competition, and to take action to improve the science base, technology, skills, institutions - the capabilities we need to survive and prosper in the knowledge driven economy.
But there is one other form of collaboration that I want to talk to you about this evening. Co-operation within firms, between employers and employees, between companies and unions. Because I think this business friendly Government - and this very business friendly Secretary of State - owe you an explanation of why we are introducing measures to promote fairness at work. You may be somewhat bemused - if not confused - by some of the speculation in the media about Fairness at Work. Let me try and guide you through the dense interpretation. Whatever you may have heard, I am entirely committed to the essence of the proposals set out in Margaret Beckett?s White Paper. They improve labour market flexibility by promoting family friendly employment policies. They contain new rights for individuals that are intended to deal with occasional abuses that I don?t think anyone in this room would defend. For example, the arbitrary dismissal of employees after nearly two year?s service with an employer before, under the existing law, they have acquired any statutory protection. What?s more, and perhaps more controversially, the proposals give the trade unions a statutory right to recognition which I believe is fair to all concerned and appropriate in terms of modern practice in workplace relations. We do not propose an absolute right on the part of trade unions to employer recognition willy nilly. What is at issue is a statutory right to recognition where, despite substantial proven support for recognition among the employees of a company, an employer refuses to concede it. It goes without saying that I am not seeking to impose trade union recognition on every British workplace. Many companies have built honest and credible partnerships with their employees with no involvement by trade unions at all. If employers and employees are content with that, and genuinely so, it is not the job of government - nor is it the job of anyone else - to attempt to order them otherwise. I am concerned about other circumstances. The issue of statutory recognition becomes relevant in a small minority of cases where the employees clearly want it - and this can be proved - and an employer refuses point blank to concede it. Although this is a right that I believe will be of sparing application, it is none the less a right that ought to be available to employees in the workplaces of tomorrow. A new legal right that I believe is a moral right and also a democratic one and consistent with a modern approach to employee relations. I believe in trade unions. I said it at the TUC and I say the same thing to you tonight at this CBI dinner. Trade unions protect the individual against arbitrary abuse of power at the workplace. They can be an effective channel of communication between employer and employee raising productivity and facilitating change. And at their best they can be a force for good in society, bringing to the consideration of public policy in areas like training and pensions the authentic voice of representatives with direct workplace experience. I say this not because I am starry eyed about the trade unions. I am not - I can assure you. I lived through the 1970s and 80s I saw some of the worst excesses at first hand - the abuses of power; the resistance to change; lack of responsibility to the good of the organisation in which their members work. If the trade unions were going to behave like that today, there is not in my view the remotest chance that ordinary employees would vote for them as their representatives. There is no desire in any part of our proposals to turn the clock back - and the clock is not for turning. The essence of Mrs Thatcher?s reforms - the primacy of the ballot in union elections and before strikes; the limitations on picketing and secondary boycott; the ability of employers to pursue actions against trade unions that have behaved improperly. These reforms will stay. They will not be altered. The case for a law on trade union recognition is in my view clear cut. But its effect on relations between employers and employees must be to promote partnership, not confrontation. And I will say this too. The essential test of the success of our legal changes will be whether business as a whole regards their terms as fair. I am determined that when the occasional disputes arise, as I know they will, the fairness of the law we have enacted will be transparent to all, and that there will be no room in the workplace climate we are promoting for the old warhorses, the ideological obsessives on either side. New Labour has no intention of revisiting the political Passchaendales of the 1960s and 1970s industrial relations trench warfare. We are determined that our proposals will involve change that will last. Change that will take the question of trade union law out of our politics for the foreseeable future. A law that endures - not a partisan law which employers will do everything they can to get repealed. This is the main test I am applying to the Bill in its final stages of drafting. If business regards these proposals as fair, as reasonable, then their effect will be to contribute to strong and lasting partnerships in the workplace.
We need to leave you as free as possible to design and build the products and services we need to win in global markets. To create the jobs and wealth that will underpin our prosperity into the next Millennium. So let me say this in conclusion. When, in May 1997, so many in business put their confidence in New Labour they did so in the knowledge that we were not going to revisit the old attitudes and prejudices of the past. They did so because they were expecting a government that believed in the working of markets not the theory of planning. Because instead of building socialism in one country we were seeking competitiveness in the global economy. In all honesty, I think you have not been disappointed. We are, and will remain, what we were when elected. Labour because of our values. New because of the very different means we have chosen to apply those values. New Labour. And it is my privilege in the DTI to work with businesses to take forward those new, chosen means, as I will do in next week?s White Paper on the knowledge driven economy. You in the business community cannot achieve all you want without a supportive government. We certainly cannot without you. We need each other. And, together, we will achieve an enormous amount - your profits, our values, the country?s success. |
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Other speeches by Rt. Hon. Peter Mandelson - Former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Jul 1998 - Dec 1998)
(the following are available from the archive) |
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