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Conclusions

• The alleged burden on business from new rights in the workplace is grossly exaggerated, a myth to give respectability to the fact that some firms simply do not want to pay the minimum wage, provide paid holidays, or recognise trade unions.

The UK gained no lasting advantage over Europe in terms of job creation or lower unemployment during the years of 'Thatcherite' reform. Predictions of huge job loses and rapidly rising unemployment as a result of the reforms introduced since 1997 have been proved completely wrong. The better UK jobs performance in the second half of the 1990s occurred as the UK labour market moved closer to the European norm, not further away.

If the UK as a major European economy is to catch up the US in terms of productivity levels, it would be logical to look at those factors that drove productivity up in major European economies that have already matched the US. We conclude that one of the key distinguishing features between British workplaces and those in the high productivity workplaces of Europe is the role of strong labour market institutions built around social partnership, wide collective bargaining coverage, and regulation.

The Government has identified five key productivity drivers - investment, innovation, skills, competition and enterprise. These are all important to different degrees, but without the sixth driver - the promotion of active social partnership both inside and outside the workplace -we will not get the sea change in working practices in the UK that we require to join the world’s productivity leaders in Northern and Western Europe. Relying on the traditional UK voluntary approach favoured by the BRTF and the employer organisations means accepting that the pace of change beyond that compatible with the bare legal minimum will be glacial.

[1] CBI Press Notice 24/10/02

[2] See Competitiveness: A Dangerous Obsession in Pop Internationalism (1996),

[3] Op cit, p.22

[4] Turner, Just Capital (2001), pp41, 42

[5] Employment Regulation: striking a balance

[6] Small Firms’ Awareness and Knowledge of Individual Employment Rights, DTI, August 2002

[7] Taylor, Managing Workplace Change, ESRC (2002)

[8] Op cit

[9] See the RIU website, Regulation Facts.

[10] Working Time Directive RIA, para 3.20, DTI, April 1998

[11] See Some Labour Market Implications of Employment Legislation, Labour Market Trends, September 2001

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