Examination of Witnesses (Questions 127-139)
THURSDAY 20 MARCH 2003
MR JOHN
EDMONDS AND
MR NEIL
CLEEVELEY
Chairman
127. Good morning and thank you for your coming to
this sub-committee hearing. We have great hopes that we will be
able to help many more people understand the issues of sustainability
through the sub-committee. I know it is very difficult, because
of the situation in Iraq, to think that business goes on as usual.
We are aware of that during our proceedings this morning. In welcoming
you to the Committee, we are keen to see how the trade union movement
as a whole fits into this whole agenda. We would like to give
you the opportunity to make some opening remarks in terms of the
clarity you have given to this agenda and the direction you would
like to see the trade union movement take on it.
(Mr Edmonds) I would like to make some
very brief opening remarks and perhaps refer to issues we might
be able to explore further in questioning, if you wish. First
of all, the trade union policy position is very straightforward,
that there is not future in dirty production. In as far as we
encourage our members to believe that there is a future in dirty
production, we are condemning them to unemployment and redundancy.
That is the baseline position. However, having said that, you
then have to contemplate the impact of a move to sustainable development,
which in some industries and in some particular production methods
and services will be fairly slight and in others will be enormous.
Those changes have to gain the support of the workforce, both
in terms of objectives and in terms of the means. Very considerable
attention has to be given to the advantages that will accrue to
the individuals and to the community. Obviously we cannot sell
this argument on the basis of some general good; we have to sell
it on the basis of particular advantages to the community in which
our members live and the eventual increases in economic well-being.
The other point is that during that process we have to reassure
people that the advantages will be ones that will be shared with
them; that is, that the advantages will not accrue to the population
at large and that they will lose, but that they will be able to
share in those advantages. That puts certain disciplines on the
way in which change is made. In our work, we have encountered
a number of fairly substantial concerns which we regard as barriers
to achieving that nice outcome, which I have described. First,
we have been surprised at the paucity of employment information
in respect of environmental initiatives. I am not saying that
an increase in employment should necessarily be a driver of environmental
initiative, but we should at least know the employment effect
of a particular environmental initiative. In our work through
TUSDAC and through the work of the TUC more generally, we have
been surprised that it has been very difficult for government
departments—the Treasury, DTI and DEFRA—to tell us
the likely outcomes of particular initiatives. The most gross
example, of course, was the extraordinary range of employment
estimates as a result of the implementation of the Climate Change
Levy. At one time, the supporters of the Climate Change Levy were
suggesting that there might be a gross increase of something like
a quarter of a million jobs, and the opponents were suggesting
that there was probably going to be a loss of nearly half a million
jobs. This is a wide span. If you try to get into those numbers,
you find that most of them are based on pretty crude modelling
techniques, which are unable to tie down pluses and minuses to
particular localities and particular industries with any precision
at all. That has been a continuing theme of our work: should there
not be better employment estimates? That is very important in
the reassurance that we refer to when talking to particular communities
and particular groups of workers as to whether they will gain
or lose from particular environmental initiatives. I think a lot
of the problems that came about in the discussion on the Climate
Change Levy arose from that particular failure. Secondly, it is
perfectly clear that the awareness of the population at large
and the working people of environmental issues and the opportunity
for sustainable development varied very widely. There is no a
high level of awareness in the population at large, neither is
there a high level of awareness in the working population. That
is something that we have tried to address, and perhaps we will
have an opportunity of talking about training measures that we
are trying to put in place to correct that. There is also a very
noticeable absence of engagement of working people in environmental
and sustainable development issues in the workplace. In management,
in as far as they are interested in such matters at all—and
the variation, as I am sure your own inquiries will have shown,
is enormous—there is still, I am afraid, a great feeling
that these issues can be dealt with on a top-down basis, that
you do not really need to engage the workers until you have a
very detailed blueprint, and you just tell people the effects
of the management decisions. This is not a good way to manage
anyone or anything but it still operates in the environmental
area. Some recent work by the Carbon Trust has demonstrated within
management itself the very wide range of awareness and interest,
even in companies in the same sector of relatively similar size,
that it is very difficult to explain why some managers are very
turned on to environmental issues and others do not take any interests
at all. These issues are not driven, as you would expect, by size
of company, nature of market, and so on; they seem to be driven
by the personal inclinations of individual managers. Although
I would not like to say that this is all whimsical, there is a
whimsical quality about it. It is very noticeable that when managers
who are particularly well aware of environmental considerations
move from company to company, they take these things with them,
and they then encourage their new company to do things satisfactorily.
It is very much in relation to the individual manager and, again,
it is very patchy. Those are the preliminary remarks I would like
to make. We are very well aware that the Government has a strong
leadership role in all this, and we have some problems about how
they might exercise that leadership. We are also very well aware
of the trades unions' responsibility, which we are trying to carry
as well. We have particular ideas about how the trades unions
could contribute to the encouragement of wider environmental awareness
and start thinking about particular initiatives that could be
taken in workplaces in the communities.
128. I would like to take you up on two points
you mention. The first is climate change. It strikes me that if
we are going to do things from the top down and the bottom up
as well, at one and the same time, maybe a meeting place for those
two approaches might be in legislation, because clearly legislation
and regulation determine the long-term environment in which businesses
operate and therefore in which jobs are created. Given that the
emissions trading legislation is coming to the Commons this afternoon
and Parliament is making the guidance in respect of various carbon
trading issues, is that something in terms of pre-legislative
scrutiny that you think could be contributed to by the trades
unions?
(Mr Edmonds) Yes.
129. There is a lot of lobbying when it comes
to health and safety at work. Do you think that trying to get
environmental clauses into the legislation on different topics
would be a role for the trade union movement?
(Mr Edmonds) I think very much so, but the engagement
issues is of enormous importance. Nine months ago I took part
in a very important seminar run by the GMB's opposite number in
Germany. That was a very high level seminar with German chemical
employers and German energy employers, which is the area in which
that union, IGBCE, operates, and there was total engagement. I
have to say I have been part of no such seminar in this country,
although on three occasions the GMB has tried to initiate one.
130. You have tried to initiate a seminar with
whom?
(Mr Edmonds) That was with the Chemical Industry Association
in the first instance and then wider into the energy field. It
seems to me that it should be possible to get a wider awareness
and a greater understanding of the whole concept of emissions
trading and how that might affect future industrial development.
We can do that in Germany but we cannot do it here in the UK;
something here is a bit wrong. We have not had anything like that
engagement. It relates back to the Climate Change Levy, which
is the best example of bad practice that I can think of in this
area. I have already talked about the wide variations in employment
estimates that came from that "debate", but the most
important thing is that the Government engaged with the trade
associations in the major industries; it did not engage with the
trade unions. We argued that there should be engagement with the
trade unions. I will explain why in a moment. Just on the question
of whether it is possible, the Government, somehow naively, suggested
to the trade associations that they might bring along trade union
representatives in their particular delegations. Some of the letters
were replied to and some were not. The trade unionists did not
form part of any of the trade association delegations. Dealing
with the trade association delegations themselves was probably
a mistake because in this country trade associations are ridiculously
weak organisations without authority and they will always work
on the basis of trying to protect the weakest among their members.
Therefore no initiatives will be taken. They will just move into
a position of more or less outright opposition: acceptance in
theory but actually no engagement on the individual issues. Trade
unions which could have brought another view to all this, and
at the very least we could have exposed some of the rather extraordinary
allegations that were being made by the trade associations, were
not involved. The trade unionists in the industries concerned,
the high energy-using industries, were involved almost as a stage
army.
131. Really you are saying to us, in terms of
your numbers and the sense of the consultation that was normally
going on in relation to other subjects, that you wanted to put
that kind of consultation on the map as far as environmental legislation
is concerned?
(Mr Edmonds) That is absolutely essential. If you
get the Climate Change Levy wrong, if you get emissions trading
wrong, that could affect not just the numbers of people employed
but the quality of employment and the nature of production across
major industries. Of course we want to be involved.
132. To pursue that further, in terms of the
strength the trade union movement would bring to the whole debate
and to this argument, how important do you think it is for your
members that they work for a company that believes it has good
corporate values? Is that something which has an awareness amongst
your members or is that an awareness which you seek to promote?
(Mr Edmonds) It is both. Our members want to be proud
of the company for which they work. If companies operate with
proper levels of social responsibility and are recognised in the
community as good employers, that enhances people's satisfaction
of course. Also, and this is a very strong point for us, we want
to express our views about these important issues. We are in a
good position to mediate between the high policy issues and the
immediate workplace impacts of particular initiatives. We can
relate one to the other in a way that managers sometimes find
it very difficult to do.
133. Presumably some of your trade union members
would be living in those communities, while some of the managers
who might be living a good distance away?
(Mr Edmonds) Quite so, and some of our people take
a double whammy. If it goes wrong, they lose their jobs and they
live in a community which is damaged environmentally as well as
damaged economically.
134. In the evidence you have given us you have
said how important it is that you measure progress against agreed
objectives and key performance indicators. Could you perhaps tell
us what they should be?
(Mr Cleeveley) Performance indicators demonstrate
how seriously an organisation is taking these issues. We would
argue that if you are going to take these issues seriously, you
have to have a well equipped and well trained workforce which
understands the issues and is engaged in them. One of the key
questions an organisation will have to answer is how well informed
and engaged its workforce is. Yes, I think it is important to
have leadership from the top and from the boardroom because, without
that, it will not happen.
135. How do you measure that?
(Mr Cleeveley) That is a very difficult thing to measure.
We are proposing here that we need to find some way to do that.
There needs to be a discussion about how we do that. We need to
find a mechanism for reporting that so that is stated on the annual
report and perhaps it should be signed off by a recognised trade
union. We would like to see a section in an annual report that
describes the process that the organisation goes through to engage
the workforce.
136. You are saying that should be done in the
annual report of the company?
(Mr Cleeveley) Yes. This says that should be reported
on regularly, perhaps more often than annually, but I would think
at least as a starting point. There should be a section that says,
"This is the process we go through and the training our staff
get at all levels, not just on the shop floor but within supervisory
level and management level. This is how they deal with environmental
issues and how the process works. This is what we have done during
the course of the year in terms of an internal debate in the organisation
and involving the workforce." An annual report is an obvious
place to mention that because, if it is reported, there can be
question on it. If an organisation is perhaps not being as open
and honest as it could be, that could be questioned and prompting
can take place. That is a fairly key point. On top of that, there
must be a level of training and environmental skills development
going on within the workplace. Just to state what is being done
is all very well but are there the skills to address these issues
effectively? Broadly, those are the factors. In some ways, there
needs to be thinking about how other key performance indicators
might be built up. That will depend on the industry concerned
and whether a production process is involved in the industry.
Have you looked at energy consumption and at the use of more raw
materials? Have you reduced the use of raw materials over the
course of the year or a particular period? Have you reduced energy
consumption? Clearly, those are things you can measure.
Mr Ainsworth
137. I was becoming concerned that there was
an aspiration here to report. Everybody agrees that reporting
is a good thing, but it is useless if you do not know what you
are reporting on. I wondered, and I do not want to open up a huge
debate here, how as an organisation you define sustainable development
in terms of practical day-to-day things that people can do to
make a difference?
(Mr Edmonds) I think we can do most of
that. First of all, taking some of the easy things, you can report
on energy consumption, and that is very important. You can report
on carbon emissions and emissions of other greenhouse gases. You
can talk about how much of your production method is based on
recycling. Some of the numbers here are difficult and there is
an opportunity for a little bit of PR. If you are a production
undertaking and you are talking about the recycling process, you
should state the extent to which you take responsibility for your
final product and whether you have set up, as part of the production
process, methods of disposal for that final product when it has
outlived its usefulness. That is extremely important, certainly
for fridges, but in all sorts of other areas, such as batteries.
I have just bought a radial flip-over saw. I happen to be a carpenter.
That is a German product. There is no equivalent British product,
sadly. On the last page of the manual it sets out in great detail
what you should do when you do not want the saw any more, who
you should return it to and what they will do. That seems to me
to be a fairly important element. Then, as Neil Cleeveley said,
there is the whole training issue: has there been general environmental
training for the workforce and has here been any effort made on
the specific environmental skills that you may need? These are
two entirely different things. This is not comprehensive, of course,
but you can get some pretty good indicators of whether people
are taking the environmental issue and the need to move to sustainable
development seriously, or whether they are just carrying on as
they were before. I think you would want to see that list in a
good company to know they are taking the issue seriously.
(Mr Cleeveley) May I add another matter? Perhaps a
large organisation ought to be considering the supply chain as
well and to what extent they are trying to influence their supply
chain and encourage suppliers or distributors to take up some
of these initiatives. Some of the initiatives the trade unions
have been involved in have been the result of large organisations
insisting that suppliers operate in a certain way if they want
to win contracts or maintain contracts. That can be quite important
because it tends to be large organisations which have environmental
specialists working for them and they take those initiatives.
They can help the small organisations with advice and guidance.
The unions can help as well in that respect.
Chairman
138. Presumably you would apply that to the
public sector in terms of public procurement policy as well?
(Mr Edmonds) Absolutely.
Mr Chaytor
139. Can I come back to the question of your
individual members of the GMB? Attached to your memorandum is
a copy of the TUC's survey that was conducted last year on the
attitudes of union members. Although it was quite a small survey,
there are some interesting figures there. Do you draw any specific
conclusions about the attitudes of GMB members or of trade union
members as a whole and what the positives and weaknesses are?
(Mr Edmonds) Yes. We use a particular
unit of a university to survey our members. Our most recent survey
of members as opposed to active members—we can categorise
people in all sorts of ways—enables us to rank environmental
issues against other issues which they consider to be important.
It is noticeable that almost everybody considers environmental
issues to be important. We have reached the stage where there
is some awareness that this is an important issue. How highly
they rate it in importance varies very much. First, there is a
slight bias in that women regard it as more important than men
do, generally, but there is a massive difference in terms of individual
industries. We have people who work in Sellafield, for instance,
where you can hardly move without being involved in environmental
considerations. We have people involved in the heavy chemical
industry, what is left of it, and in the steel industry and going
all the way through to packaging. On the other hand, we have people
involved in retail, even in individual services like security
and so on. We have a wide range of members. The differences are
very substantial indeed. The other thing we have found is that
sometimes there is not much connection between what people think
they are doing and the environmental questions that they recognise
elsewhere, if you see what I mean. We are trying to overcome one
very big weakness. In the training courses we are developing we
are trying to link what is going on in the workplace with these
wider environmental considerations and concerns, so that there
really is a connection. At a high level people say: "yes,
it is important". How important it is to individual people
varies enormously by industry but if you say, "Hold on a
minute, the way that machine is run or the way that hypermarket
is operated actually adds a very considerable environmental impact",
those connections are not usually made, and that is a real training
gap which needs to be filled.
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