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Second France/ILO Symposium
The future of work, employment and social protection:
The dynamics of change and the protection of workers
(Lyon, 17/18 January 2002)
Opening speech by Mr. Gérard Collomb
Mayor of Lyon
Director-General (Juan Somavia),
Honourable Members of Parliaments (Mr Claude Evin, Mr Jean-Pierre
Delalande, Mr Bruno Trentin),
Honourable delegates (Mrs Catherine Barbaroux, Mr Jean Lavergne)
Ladies and gentlemen,
I am delighted to welcome you to Lyon for this second France/ILO symposium
on "The future of work, employment and social protection". The series of
conferences that has brought us together today sprang from a joint desire on the
part of the International Labour Organisation and the French Ministry of
Employment and Solidarity to create a new forum for research and discussion
on the impact of the global economy on labour issues.
I should like to begin by thanking Mr Juan Somavia, Director-General of
the International Labour Organisation, for mobilising so much knowledge in
promoting international cooperation on issues which are crucial for the future of
society: work, employment and systems of social protection.
I should also like to thank all those at the International Institute for Labour
Studies, the International Labour Office and the Ministry of Employment and
Solidarity who have helped to organise this symposium. I would mention in
particular Mr Peter Auer and Mr Bernard Gazier, who will shortly be giving you
details of what this conference involves.
Finally, I should like to thank the researchers and specialists from all the
social science disciplines who will be presenting their work at the various panels
organised during this day-and-a-half of discussions.
We are delighted here in Lyon to welcome this symposium, organised
jointly by the ILO and the Ministry of Employment and Solidarity. It is actually
much more than just a symposium; after the first conference in Annecy, it is
likely to become an international annual forum for discussing the problems of
employment, work organisation and social protection and how they are changing
in the current globalisation process. In short, to use the expression that Elisabeth
Guigou used, Lyon will be a "social Davos", in contrast to or alongside the
economic Davos. I therefore appreciate the importance of your holding this
conference in Lyon, and our city is honoured to be able to welcome you here.
Lyon is actually a rather appropriate place to choose. Take its rich social
history, first of all. Its silk-weavers illuminated one of the pages of the history of
the working classes, and social thinking about how to organise undertakings and
defend wage-earners forms part of the intellectual history of our city. As you
know, Lyon has historically been a rich source of social philosophy, whether it
be Saint-Simonian, Fourierist or social Catholicism.
This deep-rooted social thinking is still very much a part of the city today.
Lyon has a great many organisations and institutions focusing on the problems
of work, employment and social protection.
First of all, there is the Institut national du travail, de l'emploi et de la
formation professionnelle (National Institute for Work, Employment and
Vocational Training) where, two months ago, I attended a meeting with Mrs
Elisabeth Guigou. There is the ANACT (Agence nationale pour l'amélioration
des conditions de travail - National Agency for the Improvement of Working
Conditions), and LASAIRE (Laboratoire social d'action, d'innovation, de
réflexions et d'échanges - Laboratory for action, innovation and discussion on
labour issues), led by Pierre Héritier. There is the Aravis association (jointly
founded), with its president Jean Peyrelevade, which aims to try to make work
better, better organised and more rewarding. There are also a number of university
departments looking at labour problems, such as the CNRS, Lyon II, and
various voluntary and private offices examining these issues.
In short, Lyon is a city where people are thinking about the evolution of
work in society, and given that we have this intellectual resource, plus what I
believe are open relations between employers and trade unions, if you were to
have a permanent social Davos, I would be happy to suggest that it should be
based in Lyon. If the proximity of the ILO headquarters in Geneva also helped
our bid, that would be marvellous. I would be particularly pleased since the
issues you deal with are subjects that interest me and interest our local council,
a number of whose members are involved in this type of study and research. I
am thinking here of Pierre Alain Muet, my economic affairs assistant and former
director of the OFCE, who has written a lot about a full-employment society.
There is also Henri Jacot, an academic who specialises in labour problems and
now has the heavy responsibility within Lyon's council of putting the 35-hour
week into practice.
These are subjects which I myself find interesting and on which, as the
national secretary of the Jean Jaurès foundation, I have organised many
symposia in France and elsewhere in Europe, and also in a number of emerging
or third-world countries.
What this means is that I am at least aware of the wide diversity of situations
and approaches to this problem, and of the apparently opposing nature of
those approaches.
It is true that in our global economy different people's interests may seem
to be widely different or even contradictory.
The informal economy, which accounts for a major share of the economy
in some southern countries, seems to have little in common with the economy
of the industrialised nations.
The leaders of these countries are sometimes heard to say that the social
measures which the industrialised countries want to introduce in the way trade
is organised are openly protectionist, or at any rate have that effect.
Alongside this, workers in the industrialised countries see new labour
markets opening up which will compete with ours and which both depress wage
levels and levels of social protection and generate unemployment through
relocation.
How should we react to these divisions which globalisation is causing? Can
we both defend wage levels, training and social protection for workers in the
industrialised nations while simultaneously trying to promote those of the third
world? At the same time we can see that our social protection systems are also
under threat from the ageing populations of the industrialised countries.
These are genuine issues, even if the neo-liberal thinking in vogue in certain
circles infers from them that we in the industrialised societies need to drastically
draw in our horns and question everything we have achieved in labour law and
social protection over the last fifty years, and that the welfare state, for example,
should be consigned to the dustbin of history.
In view of these developments, the worst thing - as is obvious to all those
who want the world not to take a step backwards in social terms, but want
workers in the emerging countries to gradually acquire a certain number of rights
- would be to do nothing.
We cannot try to stop history and development in order to wallow in defending
past achievements.
So we need to act, to resume the intellectual offensive, as you are doing at
your symposium. I am one of those optimists who think that western societies
have an extraordinary amount of energy and ability to bounce back. Throughout
the economic crisis we have just experienced people were analysing what work
was for and the need to divide the ever smaller quantity of work more sparingly.
We saw then that our industrialised societies were able to react and the prospect
of full employment gradually took shape in our minds once again. Yes, we had
September 11th, yes, the industrialised economies are currently marking time,
but I think this is only a temporary setback. I do not think that our industrialised
societies are necessarily going to become societies with two-tier labour markets
or with unstable employment in future, and I therefore feel that the ILO's
campaign for decent work is something that we need to mobilise support for not
just in the industrial societies but also in the economies of the emerging countries
or countries where labour is cheaper. Being backward in social terms is not
irreversible. We have seen in the European Union that the countries which started
out with the weakest level of development tended to make up the ground both
economically and socially. Others will catch up with the most advanced nations
in Central Europe. I think that social progress, even for those starting from a
more backward position, will inevitably spread alongside economic progress.
The same is true in the emerging countries, where - in the most advanced
of them - we are gradually seeing social legislation and standards being introduced.
It is often the ILO which pushes forward progress on this sort of legislation
and standards at international meetings.
I therefore feel that the action taken by the ILO is not just action for action's
sake, but serves to disseminate social innovation in all countries. So what
happens at symposia like this one is fundamental, since it all subsequently leads
to proposals and action.
This is why, as I said, I am delighted to welcome you all to Lyon for your
conference today and tomorrow.
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Opening speech by Mr. Collomb