Copenhagen, 29/10/2007
To be checked against delivery
President, delegates, fellow guests:
It is a pleasure to return to Denmark, the country which has given the world Hans Christian Andersen, Peter Schmeical and flexicurity. All these have played a significant part in my life at one time or other!
Last week at a meeting in Lisbon, the ETUC agreed with Europe’s employers a joint analysis of Europe’s labour markets including flexicurity.
The Dutch sometimes argue that they thought about it first but the general view is that flexicurity was invented in Denmark. It has now become a most fashionable concept in Brussels and the European Union generally, the trendiest, top of the range product among Europe’s labour and employment ministers. I bet that you did not know that you were such fashion icons.
In a more serious vein, there has been widespread admiration for the way the Danish economy transformed itself in the late 1990s from its traditional shape – agriculture, marine engineering and so on into an economy with a strong service sector, a strong environmental engineering sector and a good science and technology base.
That is what, it is so disappointing now about the decision of the Danish Government to call an election because it believes that there is deadlock. That seems in my eye to be a sign of a loss of direction from a Government which does not know what to do next and is reduced to political opportunism.
I know what it should do – implement the agreement for the public sector, stop cutting taxes for the rich, and improve the welfare state which is the basis of Denmark’s widely respected success.
I have seen that success. I was a guest of the LO two years ago and visited Herning and the textile industry there. To be honest, I was surprised to learn beforehand that Denmark still had a textile industry. I had assumed that it had emigrated eastwards to low cost producers.
And indeed the traditional production has emigrated but what remains is substantial, profitable, and paying good wages, based on a sense of western fashion, technology textiles, good design and brand management techniques with retraining and redeploying workers who have been displaced by the changes. And all done in the spirit of collective agreements and a strong union role.
I am not the only one who was impressed. Many people have been, like me, to see it at first hand. Others will have heard Poul Nyrup Rasmussen’s excellent analysis of what has been done and about the role of the LO and its affiliates. Poul, by the way, is an important and major asset to the ETUC across a wide range of our European work.
Others are now trying to learn the lessons. To be honest, some other countries find flexicurity a bit too, what can I say, a bit too protestant. You work when you have small kids. You work when you are old, and you work when you have a disability. That Nordic culture is not always universally attractive.
Others find flexicurity to be flexibility under another name – a cover for less employment protection, and for weaker labour law. And it is often true that the positive methods necessary to make flexicurity work – strong collective bargaining, high taxes, excellent active labour market policies are not advocated as clearly and forcefully.
There have been some silly statements in Brussels about no-one can expect a job for life. I have pointed out that this does not seem to include officials of the European Commission!
Worse, there are accusations that if you have a steady job, you are an insider keeping the young, the migrant, and women out of work or in precarious work. You are some kind of privileged person even if your job is low status and low paid. The implication is that you should feel guilty and give up job protections and benefits. All this risks giving flexicurity a bad name in the eyes of many trade unionists.
I think that our agreed joint analysis last week corrects some of these false impressions and puts the record straight. We will go on now to develop the social dialogue at European level on a range of questions concerning flexicurity.
President, there is one other point I want to mention. Last week, agreement was reached on the EU Reform Treaty. From the ETUC’s view point, the treaty lacks ambition although clearly Europe needed an agreement on how to run a 27 country community.
Imagine what would happen if it had not been agreed, or is not ratified. Europe won’t have an up to date rule book and as we know in the trade union world, an organisation without a rule book is not one that commands respect. Imagine the EU without a rule book negotiating with a resurgent Russia and President Putin on energy, or with the USA on agriculture or Airbus, or with China on trade and currency values. Or, indeed, in the Balkans or Middle East.
We need to settle this matter of our rule book and I hope that Denmark, and the UK for that matter, can concentrate on these questions, not become overly bogged down in questions of national identity.
Finally, I want to thank Hans for all his help and friendship. It has helped that he likes Manchester United, but he has been a sturdy, wise and widely respected President of the LO in European and world trade unionism. I will miss him, and on behalf of the ETUC, I wish, you, Hans, all the very best for a long, satisfying and healthy retirement and next phase of life. Actually, under flexicurity, you will probably soon be working again!
I take this opportunity to wish your successor well and to wish the LO and Danish trade unions a very successful future. Thank you for all your help and support.