EMPLOYABILITY AND SECURITY IN A FLEXIBLE GLOBAL LABOUR MARKET Executive summary The balance between security and flexibility – the‘Flexicurity’ of the conference title – is a crucial element of future employment policy and a key challenge for Europe's workers and employers. This was the main conclusion of the first-ever German-British trades union forum, organised jointly by the Anglo-German Foundation and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. The two-day meeting, held at Esher Place, the Amalgamated Engineering& Electrical Union’s training facility in Surrey in May 2002, brought together for the first time over thirty representatives of the trade union movement in Germany and Britain and of leading think-tanks in both countries. The discussion and debate fell into three main themes: • The trade union movement in the new economy • People and work • Training and qualifications The trade union movement in the new economy To survive in the 21st century, trade unions must embrace the extensive recent changes in the work environment. This will require them to widen their appeal beyond their traditional male/manufacturing base to include women and minority groups; to reflect the move to a knowledge-based society and the resulting changes in both the nature of work and the type of jobs available; and to respond to wider social changes through tackling such important questions as working hours, economic bottlenecks, education, and work/life balance. Trade unions will create a new image for themselves, and become more effective in the changing workplace, by becoming more customer-oriented and by putting the needs of individual members at the centre of all their activity. Skills, marketability, transferable training and portable careers are the buzzwords for the 21st century. Trade unions in the UK and Germany face different challenges. In the UK the experience of privatisation, and the consequent lower wages and worsening working conditions, has made unions cautious about change. In addition, the strength of the UK economy derives from the financial services sector, in which union membership is below average. In contrast, in Germany the manufacturing sector, where union membership remains high, is still strong. iii © Anglo-German Foundation for the Study of Industrial Society