Good morning.

Thanks Declan [Curry] for that introduction and thanks for inviting me to speak at the third WorkWise summit.

Let me begin by saying the TUC strongly supports the Work Wise Agenda, which can deliver substantial gains for employers and workers alike.

This is the third time that I have spoken at this event - and after two full years of the WorkWise campaign there is a real sense that we have moved forward

It is a tribute to the momentum that the WorkWise agenda has developed that the past year has seen the establishment of new WorkWise organisations in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and eight of the English regions.

These bodies have brought together employers and unions who are keen to drive change forward.

And many unions are now keen to engage in this agenda, as they can see it delivering genuine flexibility and choice for working people.

You may not always be able to tell from the press that we get, but unions are keen to give their members what they want - and in our cash-rich, time-poor society what many want is more flexibility over their hours and patterns of work.

That's why I'm pleased that a number of enterprises have now adopted the WorkWise Smarter Working Standard.

These include private sector companies large and small and, as we shall hear later today, DEFRA - the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
And individual unions have also been enjoying bargaining successes around flexibility.

In the private sector, successes include the re-launch of the long standing scheme at Lloyds TSB, the establishment of a virtual call centre by the Co-op's own travel agency, and a new homeworking scheme for office workers at the British Airports Authority - and despite what you might read in the press, this does not cover baggage handlers at Terminal 5.

Trade unions are also making progress in the public sector, with new deals agreed from the London borough of Barnet in the south to Salford city council in the north, and in organisations as diverse as the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Coventry University, to name a few.

One of the lessons from the many successful case studies - and clearly recognised in the WorkWise model - is that there is no one-size-fits-all model of smarter working.

Rather, changing working practices has to involve drawing on a range of measures to realign employment culture and people management practices - in ways that match both the needs of the business, and the aspirations of staff for a better quality of working life.

However, there is one feature common to all the case studies, which is that successful smarter working both relies on - and contributes to - building employee relations that are based on mutual trust and respect.

If an employer enters the process with the genuine intention of involving employees and their representatives in the details of planning and delivering smarter working, this can be a really important step in improving the whole tone of workplace relations.

Of course, even the best relationship can still have difficult days, but common sense tells us that most people will respond well to being given a degree of empowerment and treated with respect.   

Perhaps you would be surprised if a trade union leader were to bring you nothing but good news - so I won't disappoint you by bringing only a positive message.

Because there remains huge scope for improvement in British workplaces.

While we have seen some good progress during the last year, the pace of change needs to increase.

We are steadily chipping away at old-fashioned working practices through the adoption of the WorkWise standard and collective bargaining, but far too many employers remain wedded to ice age practices of rigid command and control.

One of the biggest risks facing the WorkWise agenda in the coming years is that the slowdown in the economy might make some employers more reluctant to innovate.
One of the effects of economic uncertainty is that in recent months we have seen the ten year decline in long hours working stall and start to turn up again.

The incidence of employees working more than 48 hours per week increased from 12.4 per cent to 12.9 per cent last year - that may sound statistically insignificant, but it amounts to 175,000 more long hours workers.

In a similar vein, the incidence of employees working unpaid overtime also risen slightly, from 19.4 per cent to 20.1 per cent - that's an additional 100,000 people doing extra work for free.

Faced with economic uncertainty, some employers seem reluctant to recruit and are instead simply getting more hours from their existing staff.

These figures suggest there are no grounds for complacency.

Although I am sure that I will be preaching to the converted when I say this, perhaps it is still worth stating the obvious point that as the going gets a bit tougher, there will be an even stronger need to seek the personnel and bottom line benefits of smarter working than there would be in a period of strong economic growth.

And let's remember that at a time of corporate belt-tightening, non-financial reward - and flexible working is a big part of that - assumes a new importance.
But it is not only the changing economy that could and should act as a catalyst for change.

Environmental issues too will rightly play a big part.

As fears about climate change become more acute, it's clear that we must reduce the carbon footprint of work.

That's why the TUC has been playing a strong role in the environmental debate at both the national and international level.

However, perhaps our unique contribution has been to take the issues into individual workplaces. You will have seen our guide to "greening the workplace" in your delegates packs.

Unions already have thousands of green representatives in workplaces throughout the UK, and many more are coming on stream.

One important spin off from union involvement in environmental issues in the workplace is better control of energy costs - no small matter in a time of rising prices!

Our reps often report that they are surprised that management had not thought to introduce simple energy saving measures such as better insulation until they raised the issue.

They are increasingly turning their minds to the strong environmental gains to be made from the adoption of more flexible patterns of work, including homeworking.
Cutting down on commuter journeys and reducing congestion on the roads and overcrowding on public transport would be one of the more painless ways of combating climate change.

There are also gains where employees want to undertake homeworking on a permanent basis, since this cuts the pressures on expanding businesses to seek bigger premises.

Again, the facts speak for themselves.

The average time taken to get to work has grown by ten per cent in the last decade. In all, UK workers now spend over 1.1 billion hours per year just travelling to and from work.

This amounts to a lot of wasted time, a lot of unnecessary congestion and a lot of avoidable pollution.  Commuting is generating over six million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year.

And as real wages have risen, many employees have understandably been willing to travel further to get to work.

In the last decade, the number of employees who commute for more than an hour each day has increased by 40 per cent - up to five and a half million workers.  
Trade unions have been working hard to address this issue through smarter working measures, including the use of workplace travel plans.

In both private and public sectors, these are already making a difference.
In particular, local government - which has a formal role in travel planning - is now focusing clearly on the issue in a big way.

Of course, Transport for London, the key player in the capital, is a strategic partner in WorkWise UK.

In terms of where we go next, we should note that there is still a very substantial amount of unmet demand amongst employees for more flexibility over their hours and patterns of work.

The Government's own work-life balance survey shows that about one in five employees with no flexibility would like to have access to flexitime, whilst a similar number want to be able to work from home on a regular basis.

These figures help to explain why the government has wanted to set decent minimum legal standards, through the right to request flexible working, and why it wants to continue to expand the scope of these regulations.

However, legal standards are really only there to ensure that people who work for the not-so-smart employers don't get left behind.

At this conference, we are more concerned with discussing how we can spread best practice. The smartest employers realised some years ago that accommodating the desire for more flexibility brings real business benefits and are now getting on with the job of refining their established systems

These employers know very well that adopting smarter working practices can be translated into bottom-line benefits - through improved productivity, reduced costs, and enhanced recruitment, retention and motivation.

Managers are increasingly realising that they have most to gain from cutting commuter journeys, as they spend more than three times longer getting to work as those in elementary occupations.

The trouble is that in some cases they have taken they flexibilities and kept them for themselves. Naturally this kind of "status grab" will not deliver the business benefits that are associated with real smart working.

As always, the biggest gains for working people come when the benefits are dispersed as widely as possible within organisations - and when the rump of corporate Britain follows the lead of pioneering employers.

The good news is WorkWise has given the UK a strong push in this direction.
We have moved forward since last year, and real steps have been taken to roll out the WorkWise agenda to the nations and regions of the UK, but we still need keep our foot firmly on the accelerator in the coming year.

Speeding up the pace of change will require solid support from government, business and unions alike.

The benefits of the WorkWise agenda for employees are obvious. Many workers want more flexibility about where, when and, how they work.

And for employers, the benefits of smarter working are well documented. Few could afford to turn up their noses at the 15 to 30 per cent productivity increases achieved by BT and others. 

And there is no doubt that the UK as a whole could gain from cutting commuter journeys, which would reduce both emissions and traffic congestion.

In short, we really cannot afford not to take this agenda forward. This really is a genuine ''win-win scenario''.

So our task for next year is to stiffen our own resolve and summon up the will of our people to see the task through.

Let's work together to make this country work smarter.

And let's not lose sight of the potential prize.

A greener, happier, more productive Britain.

Thank you.