-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Sunday, 7 February 1999 19:06
Subject: Wealth creation is brit priority (so is union busting!!)
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Wealth creation is the priority, insists minister By Nicholas Watt,
David Hencke and David Gow Guardian (london)
Wednesday February 3, 1999 Stephen Byers, the arch-modernising Trade
and Industry Secretary, last night buried the central tenet of the
Labour movement when he declared that wealth creation is now more
important than the redistribution of wealth.
In his first major speech since succeeding Peter Mandelson, Mr Byers
pledged not to hinder the work of entrepreneurs and promised there
would be no "drip drip" of employment laws.
"The reality is that wealth creation is now more important than
wealth redistribution," Mr Byers told an audience at the Mansion
House in the City of London. "Governments should not hinder
(entrepreneurs) but work to ensure the market functions properly and
contributes to creating a strong, just and fair society."
Mr Byers's speech was seen at Westminster last night as an attempt to
stamp his mark on the DTI by casting himself as an even more radical
moderniser than Peter Mandelson who resigned as Trade and Industry
Secretary in December.
Mr Byers first burst onto the national scene as a devoted Blairite in
1994 when he told a group of lobby correspondents over dinner at the
TUC conference that Labour might sever its links with the trade
unions.
In his speech last night Mr Byers made clear that his master's much
vaunted "Third Way" philosophy - which aims to chart a middle course
between the right and the left - would be his guiding light at the
DTI.
"There can be no return to the outdated interventionism of the old
left," he said. "The corporate state did not work. But neither did
naive reliance on laissez-faire. This led to destructive
individualism and a crippling obsession with what the Government
should not do."
But the Confederation of British Industry delivered a warning shot
across the new minister's bows by demanding measures in the March
Budget to counter recent burdens on business costing more than �35
billion a year and to cut red tape.
Mr Byers, who pleased Labour traditionalists last week when he
unveiled a series of family-friendly employment policies, said the
DTI under his leadership would reconcile wealth creation with social
justice and fairness. "I firmly believe that the best way to address
inequality and social exclusion is to create a more affluent, more
successful Britain with opportunities for everyone to fulfill their
potential."
Putting the DTI in the "vanguard of change" and demanding an end to
"the poverty of ambition", Mr Byers embraced Mr Mandelson's "crusade
for greater enterprise" and campaign to encourage "responsible risk-
taking".
He reaffirmed his predecessor's proposals - first unveiled at the CBI
conference in November - to reform the bankruptcy and insolvency laws
and disclosed that a new working group will report back to him by the
end of April. The Government, said Mr Byers, wants limits placed on
the powers of the Inland Revenue and Customs to drive firms into
bankruptcy because of unpaid taxes and duties.
He also confirmed that he is planning legislation to speed up the
disqualification of unfit directors - "those who exploit the system,
often inflicting pain and financial ruin on individuals and
businesses in the process".
Only over Europe and the single currency did Mr Byers differ in tone
significantly from Mr Mandelson. His predecessor indicated at the CBI
conference last autumn that it was now a question of when, not if,
Britain joined the euro. But Mr Byers stuck to the traditional line
of "prepare and decide" as the best policy.
In his modernising crusade, Mr Byers will also reform the workings of
the DTI, particularly his own role as minister responsible for
science. The Trade and Industry Secretary aims to tighten up the
myriad of Whitehall committees which oversee science to restore
public confidence in British science after the BSE fiasco.
"Our first task is to build up public confidence in science and in
the response of politicians to the advice they receive," Mr Byers
told his City audience. "The public enquiry on BSE has highlighted
the sort of mistakes we must not repeat."
Officials at the DTI are hoping that Mr Byers's speech will raise his
- and thereby their department's - profile. Senior officials believe
that Mr Byers has been deliberately quiet in the last month as he
attempted to find his feet.
Some officials now look back on Mr Mandelson's brief tenure at the
DTI nostalgically because his confidence and his proximity to the
Prime Minister increased their department's profile.
"Peter was so good at presentation and selling Britain abroad," one
official said.
==================================
MEANWHILE ...
US union busters get busy in UK
By Antony Barnett
Guardian (London) Sunday January 24, 1999
America's most notorious firms of union-busters - renowned for using
dirty tricks to help corporations keep out trade unions - are heading
for Britain.
They aim to help companies get round the 'spirit' of the Governments
Fairness at Work Bill, to be published this week, which will give new
legal rights to workers.
The Bill will compel firms to recognise and negotiate with trade
unions if 40 per cent of the workforce vote for such representation
in a secret ballot. It restores the right to union recognition, taken
away by Margaret Thatcher's Government in 1980.
In the United States, a billion-dollar union-busting industry has
grown up, employing techniques to smash unions and prevent them from
gaining footholds in non-union companies.
They earn their lucrative fees by specialising in helping management
to defeat ballots for union recognition, which often result in the
sacking of pro-union employees.
Examples of their tactics include engineering one-to-one meetings
between individual employees and management where workers are
pressurised not to join a union because they risk bankrupting the
firm and losing their job or benefits.
In some cases, family members of union supporters receive visits or
phone calls telling them of the risks. Union-busters also form anti-
union committees of employees with links to management and new
recruits are screened for their attitude to unionism.
They have held raffles in which workers can win free holidays if they
can guess the number of unionised factories that have closed down.
The Observer has learnt that the leading union-busting law practice
in the US - Jackson Lewis Schnitzler & Krugman - is advising US
companies in Britain on how to keep unions out of the workplace. It
plans to bring its how to stay union-free seminars here this year.
Martin Payson, senior partner of the firms New York office, who
admitted advising several US companies in Britain, said: 'UK
companies have a lot to learn. Recognition ballots can be battles for
the heart and soul of a company.'
Jackson Lewis keeps its clients confidential, but it is known it
advises Borders, the US owner of fashionable new book superstores in
Britain, including the Books etc chain. Borders markets itself on a
laid-back atmosphere in its giant bookstores, with cafes and music
shops.
But the company's attitude to trade unions is far from laid back.
Internal management documents seen by The Observer reveal a
'vigorous' anti-union philosophy.
In America, Borders - using Jackson Lewis - has fought bitter
campaigns to smash unions, including sacking union activists and
threatening to close stores if workers join unions. They banned the
American award-winning campaigning journalist Michael Moore - who has
exposed unethical behaviour in multinational corporations such as
Ford - from a Borders store because of his outspoken union
sympathies.
Richard Bensinger, a union adviser in the US, said: 'Stop these guys
at your shores. They are the lowest in the food chain. They drive
wedges between reasonable employers and unions, and start wars which
they make millions from. They stoop to almost anything to stop unions
winning ballots and it's immensely damaging.'
The Confederation of British Industry, which remains fiercely opposed
to statutory union recognition, said it was up to individual
companies to get advice from whom they wished. CBI lobbying forced
the Government to make it much harder for unions to win recognition
ballots.
Roger Lyons, General Secretary of the Manufacturing, Science and
Finance Union, said: 'We have ended up with a Bill that is basically
a union-buster's charter. It could lead to large, unnecessary
disruptions at work, which is in the interests of nobody, apart from
the union-busters themselves.' =============
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