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Mainpage General Synthesis of the Symposium Agenda Opening speech by Mr. Collomb Speech by Mr. Somavia Introduction by Peter Auer and Bernard Gazier Lyon Conference Papers List of Participants

I should like to thank Gérard Collomb for his introduction, which showed us exactly why we made the right choice in coming here to Lyon. I am particularly pleased to open this second France/ILO symposium. As the Mayor pointed out, Lyon is a city where work and workers have always occupied a very important place, both now and in the past. As you said, Lyon houses a number of major labour institutions such as the Institut National du Travail, de l'Emploi et de la Formation Professionnelle (Institute for Work, Employment and Vocational Training) and the Agence Nationale pour l'Amélioration des Conditions de Travail (National Agency for the Improvement of Working Conditions), one of whose directors is here today.

You mentioned the history of labour struggles, social debates and contributions to thinking and action on these issues, and I think that this is undoubtedly why our discussions today are firmly rooted in reality, in a city which has lived and is still living the subject we are debating, and whose mayor has called on us to debate this in a global context, in the context of the world we see around us, where instability is everywhere. A lot has been said about the river, and the fact that there is more than a river bringing us together. I think this is very true, and I very much hope that we can work together on issues like those raised by this symposium.

I should like to express my gratitude to the Minister, Mrs Elisabeth Guigou, for the support she has given this conference. I am also looking forward to taking part with her later in the round-table discussion that will mark the end of this conference.

In accordance with the framework agreement between the French Government and the ILO, this symposium is being held under the aegis of the ILO and the Ministry of Employment and Solidarity, with which we are working handin- hand in a very close spirit of cooperation. The agreement also provides for France to make a series of major contributions towards achieving the tasks we have set ourselves, and I should like to thank the French Government for the unfailing support it has given our Organisation.

Rather than waiting until the end to do so, I would like to begin this twoday conference by thanking the people who have organised it. Among the organisers on the French side, help has been provided at particularly critical points by Mr Lavergne, France's representative at the ILO, Mrs de Soucy at the Minister's office, and Mr Garnier and Mr Suesser. On the ILO side my thanks go to Mr Rodgers, Mr Reynaud, and to Mr Parisotto and all the team at the International Institute for Labour Studies, starting with Mrs Julie Silcock, with whom you were all in contact during the preparatory work for the conference, Mrs Vanna Rougier and Mrs Françoise Weeks. I notice that I have not mentioned Peter Auer, who prepared my notes. Special thanks should go to him and Mr Bernard Gazier, of course, who have led the whole operation.

Let us turn without further ado to the focus of our debate. The idea of holding these conferences came up in 1999. It was a simple one, as you said, Mr Mayor: to look beyond the single, dominant way of thinking which analyses globalisation largely on the basis of economic considerations, stressing its monetary and financial dimensions in particular. This, I believe, as do many other people in the world, is too narrow a framework to cover the effects that globalisation has on people's lives and families. It is an analytical approach which focuses exclusively on one aspect of today's policies, economic policies that have a direct impact on people's lives and the lives of their families.

We therefore needed to introduce a pluralist approach centred on the idea that the social and the economic do not have to be in opposition, but should inform each other in order to facilitate sustainable economic and social development. Hence the idea of creating a forum around this concept of economic and social integration, in order to discuss ideas that are likely to influence the debate at global level. Like you, Mr Mayor, I do not believe that we should resign ourselves to accepting that the economic and social aspects of development are incompatible. I think that in the European Union debate, when people say yes to full employment for everyone, they are actually affirming that economic and social conditions can be made compatible. When we at the ILO say yes, profitability is necessary, but so is security, otherwise there is no point in being profitable, and when we fix these as policy objectives because they meet people's needs, I believe that we can find ways of achieving them.

I refuse to believe that the globalisation process is such that the only socially acceptable option is to halt it. No, I think that essential adjustments need to be made alongside the changes. Adjustment to technological progress, which has happened throughout the history of mankind; technological phenomena are destroying jobs but are also creating them. Such phenomena are part of history; they happened in the past, they will happen again. But it is important to stress that there is nothing inevitable about the policies accompanying this inevitable technological progress. Policies change and policies have to be changed when what they achieve, in people's eyes and in the eyes of their families and society, does not satisfy objective requirements. I think that technological progress is an inevitable phenomenon which affects more people today. The political issue is how to make it compatible with social progress.

I think there are a series of responses in which balances can be found between the economic and the social. The idea of these symposia is to discuss this issue through interaction between decision-makers and researchers at an international level. What was clear from the outset is that there is little time for discussion in politics, but at the same time there is an increasing need for discussion, because politics, as Elisabeth Guigou said in her speech at the first symposium, needs "better understanding for more effective action".

This dialogue between the world of politics and administration on the one hand and researchers at national or international level on the other is, in my view, absolutely essential in all our societies. As at the Annecy conference, the main theme is still the future of work, employment and social protection in the industrialised countries. We can see that the industrialised nations are far from having overcome their own problems. There are new challenges, particularly unemployment and the quality of work. They too, therefore, have some ground to make up when it comes to decent work, albeit rather less than in the rest of the world, of course.

The problem of decent work is not about how to transfer the achievements of the developed countries to the developing countries. Decent work is a challenge for every country, and every country faces its own challenge in deciding how to combine the four main elements of decent work, which are job and business creation, rights at work, social protection and social dialogue. There is no society in the world that can say it has achieved these four goals and has nothing else to do. Such a society does not exist. This is why the challenge is a global one. In good times, when things are going well, the question is how to ensure that the benefits are distributed more fairly. When things are going badly, as they are today, we need to provide better protection for people and businesses. The same objective applies during periods of expansion and recession, such as the ones we are going through at present.

There is another reason for our discussions here, which has to do with the fact that Europe in general, and France in particular, has become a real melting pot for producing new ideas and policies on work, employment and social protection. Adjustments are made in response to the changes imposed by globalisation, technology, demography and the revolution in social values. You too mentioned a few aspects of these issues, Mr Mayor. We are meeting today at a time when the economic situation is a complex one. In Japan we do not know how the situation is going to develop; the USA has been officially declared in recession, and growth in Europe is weak. As there is a clear link between economic growth and social issues, social stagnation or even regression might develop. So the three main sources of development and economic growth in the past are all in a critical situation. It is at times like this when the type of discussions we are having here become even more important. I said that the four ILO objectives regarding decent work were equally valid in good times and bad, and now is the time to use these concepts to find a way out of the crisis. I would like to tell you about a very interesting development that is taking place in the ILO on this subject.

Both the employers' and trade union organisations which send representatives to the ILO said to themselves this year 'we need to be careful to find a productive way out of the crisis'. Of course, if growth declines a lot of other things will also get worse, but then we will need to try to protect businesses and jobs. This is not always possible, and that is when we need social policies. But there are other people who want policies to get us out of the crisis which go beyond mere social adjustments and generate dynamism in the economy. Above all, the developing countries have asked the developed countries to provide the means to stimulate economic expansion: the USA began to do this on 12 September with a series of injections into the economy, creating extra demand. The developing countries do not have the wherewithal for this. The most dangerous thing would be for the world's leading financial and monetary analysts to tell the developed countries to reactivate their economies and the developing countries to be cautious because they do not have the resources, and to make economic adjustments. I mention this because these are the sorts of things that are being said in relation to specific problems that you are currently experiencing in France.

These are global problems, and the type of policies introduced today will determine whether there is more or less unemployment in the future. This takes us straight to the heart of the discussions in our three panels, which are looking at two fundamental and innovative themes: the importance of a dynamic perspective in analysing and finding solutions to the problems of work, employment and social protection, and the need for better integration of the various policies relating to these issues in order to face present and future challenges. To take just one example, if we want to try to promote decent work, we need to have an idea of how work is likely to change over time. We need to establish whether it acts as a trap, locking people into a life of insecurity, or whether instead it is a bridge to a better future. We therefore need to have an idea of the possible career paths and the dynamics of change which work gives an individual, and of the genuine likelihood of improvement in given employment situations. For this, we need a better understanding of transitions in the labour markets.

This is why we also need to have a very clear perception of the critical phases represented by transitions between school and working life or between work and unemployment, and above all of the many risks of exclusion which these present, depending on the way people set about managing these transitions. We therefore need to target political action on these critical transition points.

There are, as I have seen, very clear descriptions in the conference programme of the links between family and work. I would just like to point out one aspect which concerns me deeply: Generally, people grasp unemployment in a statistical sense, as the unemployment rate or the share of the long term unemployed, etc. But behind these numbers there is the life of people and unemployment as the reason for a multitude of family problems. The percentage of families in which nobody is working is steadily increasing. We know that an unemployed family, even if only one of its members is concerned, is a very unhappy family: there is domestic violence, usually against women and children. Often children of these families have to go to work. Other problems follow, like the use of drugs and alcohol. There is the problem of trafficking of women and children. In addition there is the problem of poor education: all this is leading to the building up of new "lost generations".

We can see that unemployment is a statistic that tells us nothing about what is happening in families. We behave as if the world of work, whether you are in work or not, has nothing to do with what is going on in families.

Uncertainty affects everyone today, big businesses as well as small. It is currently impossible to plan how a business will develop in five or six years. This general uncertainty is beginning to affect our social structures, and it is how insecurity finds expression within families around the world. This is all I wish to say about this: it is not just about the compatibility between families and work, but about the lack of work and the widespread uncertainty in which people find themselves.

The third panel will be looking at the need for new regulation to accompany social changes, particularly on the labour market, and covering all fields: employment relationships, social rights, in-service training, contracts of employment. Here too there is the question of how to integrate the various policies: fiscal policy, family policy, policies on work, employment and social protection, as well as on health and many other areas. All of these have an obvious influence on each other, but they are still all too often treated as if they were separate. Clearly, understanding how they interact will require considerable analysis and greater efforts in terms of social dialogue.

I believe that this is a key element in a world that is becoming more globalised. The main problem with formulating policies is that at national level, and even more so at international level, policies are defined sector by sector, and any integration is normally the result of financial arbitration when the budget is discussed. This happens at national level, with the parliament. It is difficult to integrate these policies and get them to interact, and I think this is a particular problem at international level. It is absolutely vital to discuss ways of integrating them better.

In conclusion, I would say that the aim of these conferences, which are unique in their multidisciplinary nature and in the wide range of participants they bring together, is to be a melting pot for new ideas, and they should begin to provide a response to all the questions I have just outlined. This is my hope in opening the symposium today.

I should like to end by saying that I think that the framework for our discussions is becoming clearer as the process of globalisation continues. Work is one element of production costs and is therefore inevitably an aspect of economic life and production. This is why we talk about a labour market. The market plays a key role in determining the cost of labour, not its value, but its cost. However, at the same time, work is the main thing on which our personal dignity is founded: we derive part of our identity from work, and we have a relationship with society through work.

Work is also, as I have just said, a factor which is central to the family. We know that communities where people are working are peaceful communities, while those where people are not working face huge social tensions. This is why work lies at the heart of politics. You cannot stand as a candidate without talking about work, and this applies the world over. Our key problem is that this phenomenon, which is basically linked to the market and to economics, also has social links at the same time. Our challenge, in our discussions and in politics, is to manage to combine these two elements. We tend to link them by talking about economic and social, but I think it goes much further. There are some options in society for which identity, family and dignity are important, and we need to analyse how work can be organised to strengthen these aspects. This question is wide open, because there are enormous challenges to be faced, such as how the global economy should be organised to be able to generate the jobs that the world needs. The truth is that during the 1990s the number of unemployed in the world increased from 100 million (the official figure, with all the limitations that implies) to 160 million by the end of the decade. The recession that has set in since 11 September already means that 24 million jobs will not be created or will be lost. Even without these unforeseeable and tragic events, the world is structurally incapable of creating more and more jobs: the structural trend is towards fewer jobs. How can we deal with this, given the economic and social links that work has?

I will conclude by saying that these are the sorts of issues that the world of research, debate and reflection needs to consider. They are also issues which you, Mr Mayor, who are responsible for day-to-day policy, have to deal with. We in the ILO need to think about the regulations and work systems that we need for a better world, and I hope that we will all benefit from your discussions. Thank you very much for being here, Mr Mayor, and for welcoming us to Lyon. 20 Symposium France/ILO 2002