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The Rt. Hon. Patricia HewittTUC Flexibility for All Conference |
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I greatly welcome the opportunity to speak to you today. The timing is excellent. We are about to see radical changes to the time - and money - available to families with young children. Working time - and how we organise it - is central to three of the biggest issues confronting us today. How can we improve the conditions in which our children grow up by strengthening family life? How can we achieve greater equality between women and men? And how can we raise productivity at the workplace - in other words, make our businesses and public services more effective and more successful? We all know about the old model of working time. Full-time, life-time employment for men; interrupted employment and unpaid work at home for women. Not every family followed the same pattern - even in the 1950s, there were many working-class women with no choice but to get a job. But the ideal was clear, and it was the basis on which employers and government policy operated. But that old model has gone. Today, the majority of two-parent families are also two-earner families - and throughout the workforce, working hours are increasingly flexible. Britain has one of the highest rates of women's employment in Europe; the second highest rates of part-time working; more people working evenings, nights or weekends than in most other EU countries; and, as we've heard again this morning, more full-time workers doing very long hours than any other EU country. There are advantages, and disadvantages, to our more flexible working hours. Part-time work makes it easier for many mothers - and a few fathers too - to balance work and family, although part-time work can carry a high price in lower pay for women. But with more and more women returning to work full-time after having a child - and with many full-time jobs demanding increasingly long hours - the strain of juggling home and work is becoming acute for many families. It's hard enough when a couple are both doing well-paid jobs they love - as many MPs know. But the real strain is felt by parents in badly-paid jobs that leave them little or no choice - like the women who work nights while their partner is at home, and then do a second shift with the children during the day. And the long hours that so many fathers work are all too often a factor in relationship breakdown and divorce. Increasingly, flexible working time is essential to business success - and the success of public services too. In my own city of Leicester, my local hospital has found that, with the exception of a few specialities like children's paediatric nurses, they have had almost no difficulty recruiting and retaining nurses - and one of the reasons is that they offer their nurses almost complete choice about how long they want to work, and when. Or take the case of James Rothwell and Sons Limited a family-owned independent mushroom growing business based in Lancashire. In just six months since some simple but highly effective changes to its working practices the company has seen a 9% improvement in productivity, a 26% reduction in the cost of overtime, 44% reduction in staff turnover and a 46% drop in the overall absence rate. And Horlicks have found that giving employees more flexibility has helped them better meet variations in production times - employees who can go home earlier when they have finished their work before clocking off time are more than happier to stay on a bit longer at another time to finish a piece of work. So I'm very clear about the importance of working time reform to individuals, to families and to organisations. When women are nearly half the workforce, enabling people to balance work and the rest of their life isn't just a good thing to do, it's essential. We all want working hours that suit us individually. We also want working hours that meet our needs as consumers. It's not only hospitals that have to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. All of us as consumers want more goods and services available at a time that suits us - and if we want to be more demanding as consumers, we need more flexible work-places too. I'm clear, therefore, about our goal. We don't want everyone working the same long hours, because that's not what people want for themselves. We want people to have far greater choice about their working hours - because different people will want a different balance at different stages of their lives. So how do we get there? Britain, of course, has a very different tradition of working time regulation than most of the rest of Europe, where working hours have generally been set by law - and most people work the same, full-time hours. The wider variety of working hours here has real advantages - without it, people would have less choice and less control over their working time. But of course it has disadvantages too - extremely long hours at one end of the spectrum; and, until we ensured workers were paid for time spent 'on call' in the workplace, zero hours contracts at the other. So the first thing we had to do when we started on working time reform was to set some limits to flexibility. We did that by implementing the Working Time Directive - something the Conservatives had fought tooth and nail. A 48-hour week for most workers. It's stopped the upward trend in working hours - indeed, we've already got the average working week down by nearly an hour. In the next 18 months, we will extend the legislation to include the transport sectors, offshore workers and junior doctors. And we're about to consult again on tightening the legislation on 16 and 17 year olds. For the first time, too, four weeks' paid holiday a year - a real improvement for over three million men and women. We also tackled the discrimination against part-time workers. And we introduced time off to deal with family emergencies, and parental leave for those with young children. Now we're starting the next phase of reform. From next April, we will see an historic change to the level of maternity pay and the length of maternity leave. Statutory maternity pay up to £100 a week. And maternity leave in total up to a year. The biggest change for 40 years. It was quite clear from our consultation before the election that this was the no 1 priority for families - and we're delivering it. So mothers will have more choice in that crucial first year of a child's life. They won't be forced to go back to work too early - or give up their job. And as a result, more will actually go back to work - benefiting themselves, their families, and their employers. We will also recognise, for the first time, the role that fathers play at birth both in bonding with the child and supporting the mother. For the first time fathers will be entitled to two weeks paid paternity leave. Nor are we concentrating just on birth parents. I am delighted to be able to remedy the iniquitous treatment of adoptive parents who have had no entitlement to paid leave at all. I quoted earlier the examples of some employers who are great examples of best practice in family-friendly working. But there are still too many who haven't seen the light. I was talking recently to a major clothing retailer, who is approached every week by hundreds of British manufacturers wanting to work for him. He met one of these manufacturers and explained that what he really needs is very fast turn-around of short runs - to cope with a highly competitive fashion market. The manufacturer explained that his standard delivery times were so many weeks. The retailer asked whether he couldn't put on extra shifts to cope with peak demand, and enquired how many part-time workers he had. The manufacturer said he thought that, out of about 400 workers, only about 4 were part-time. Couldn't he employ more, asked the retailer. 'If I started doing that,' said the manufacturer, 'everyone would want to do it!' So there was a manufacturer not meeting the needs of a potential customer - a customer he badly wanted business from - and not meeting the needs of his employees either. It certainly made me wonder how long he'd stay in business. That manufacturer certainly isn't alone. As the TUC's own polling showed, only 38% of all employees surveyed said their employer would let them vary their start and finish time while just 16% said they could easily switch to part time work. What we need is a fundamental change in Britain's working culture. And if we leave it to voluntary efforts, it will take too long. Research done for the Work-Life Balance Campaign showed that it could take up to 20 years to bring about change by best practice alone. Parents of today's young children cannot wait 20 years for the message to get through to all employers. That is why we are legislating to spread best practice more quickly. Legislating to bring about the change in 5 years not 20. So our third, major change from April next year, will be to set new legal standards for parents of young children who want family-friendly working. I am very grateful to the work of the TUC and other unions on the Work and Parents Taskforce. I know it was very difficult to get an agreement. But given the pressure on Parliamentary time, the only way we could legislate in this year's Employment Bill was on the basis of a consensus - and by working in partnership with the CBI, small businesses and the Equal Opportunities Commission, you ensured that we got an agreement. You made sure that employers understood how difficult it is for parents when employers reject out of hand request to work flexibly because they have never done it, or because everyone else will want to do so. Next year those responses will not be acceptable. Employers will have to sit down and discuss with parents their requests and either agree new arrangements, or provide hard business reasons for rejecting them. This way, we'll get family-friendly working onto the agenda of every business. And we'll get more employers to understand the costs of not providing family-friendly working - such as the cost of replacing a valued employee who has to leave because they cannot balance the needs of their children and the needs of their employers. Like WPC Michelle Chew, the policewomen I met with many years' experience in child protection work whose police service would not bother to find her a job that enabled her to combine her childcare responsibilities with her police work. We will monitor from day one how employers and parents use the new right and its effect on the availability of flexible working opportunities. And this monitoring will feed into the surveys which we also plan to enable a review of the new right to commence three years after it has come into force. But it takes far more than new laws to achieve real, lasting change. And because what suits one person in one job in one organisation won't suit as different person in a different job in a different organisation, it is impossible to impose flexibility by law on millions of different workplaces. So we have to find smarter ways, as well as the law, to get the culture change we want. Because in five years' time, we will have failed if we haven't made serious inroads into cutting excessive working hours. Today, I want to end by suggesting four ways in which we can attack the destructive long hours culture and promote flexibility that works for people as well as business. First, we need a new push for working time reform in the public sector. Last year, when I met the DTI unions, we agreed that they would work together with senior management to improve work-life balance - and last week the DTI executive board agreed the recommendations of the working group. I have also written to Cabinet colleagues inviting them to share best practice on family-friendly working, and to create partnerships with their trade unions to tackle any long hours culture. Second, we must develop effective advice and support for employees - and employers - something we committed to do as we implement the Bain Task Force recommendations. We're inviting unions, employers and family groups to help us make sure that this happens. Third, we must all do more to spread best practice, building on the work we've already started with the Work Life Balance Campaign. Today, we're hearing some examples of success. We need far more. That is why I have today written to all General Secretaries on the TUC Council appealing to them to give me examples of best practice on family friendly arrangements in the private as well as the public sectors. But we also can learn from what others are doing. As I said earlier, the legal context in other countries is very different - and we can't simply transpose laws from one country to another. But within those different legal frameworks, employers in other parts of Europe and in America have also found innovative ways of changing working hours - and improving family life, and raising productivity at the same time. So I have suggested to John Monks that we arrange a joint study programme of trade union officers and government officials - a study programme that I will personally lead - to look at and report on best practice and successful innovation in the Netherlands, France and the USA. Fourth, I want to see every union negotiating agreements on working time. Thanks to the changes we made in our first term, far more large workplaces now recognise trade unions. That means far more people at work who can look to their unions to take the lead on cutting excessive working hours and creating flexible working patterns that suit people as well as productivity. The Joint Shop Stewards committee at BNFL Springfield's tell me that they have broken the long-hours culture there. Workers who previously worked overtime were instead allocated 'banked hours' over normal hours paid at time and a quarter to be used if needed. Experience since 1999 has been that use of banked hours by employees has been almost zero. Management still have the flexibility to ask their staff to work the banked hours if there is a need; but by removing the immediate financial reward of working overtime the long hours culture has been eliminated and there is now a flexible approach to getting the job done. Workers are paid for their banked hours, whether worked or not, and have achieved a better work-life balance. Some people who worked high levels of overtime may well have lost some earnings but they have a higher level of stable income and a healthier work-life balance. But let's not underestimate the scale of the challenge. We all know that unions have not always succeeded in persuading their members to give up long overtime hours, even in return for better basic pay. So we need to find ways to increase productivity and thus maintain pay over fewer hours. Over the last two decades, 'flexibility' has become the buzzword of the British labour market. But there is a high road to flexibility and a low road. The low road was the Conservative road ? one-way flexibility, with all the rights for employers and all the responsibilities for employees. We are taking the high road. Fair standards and decent rights for all. Working time reform that balances the different needs of individuals and families, the demands of consumers, and the need to raise productivity across the public and private sector. That's the challenge - and I look forward to working in an even stronger partnership with you to deliver it. |
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Other speeches by The Rt. Hon. Patricia Hewitt
(the following are available from the archive) |
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