Management and unionists attempt to mend fences

Industrialists from some of Britain's biggest companies yesterday joined senior union leaders to endorse a campaign to rid labour relations of the 'them and us' attitude.

The initiative is being backed by Sir Bryan Nicholson, chairman of the Post Office, David Sainsbury, deputy chairman of the stores group, Sir John Harvey-Jones, ex-chairman of ICI, and John Edmonds, general secretary of the GMB general union, and Bill Jordan, president of the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union - respectively the second- and third-largest TUC affiliates.

The campaign will call on management to make employment security the cornerstone of its labour relations policies and to recognise employees' right to be 'informed, consulted and represented'. Companies are also urged to share financial success with the whole workforce and warned that 'excessive' pay increases for top managers and other 'divisive devices' can sour the atmosphere.

Unions are asked to accept flexible work practices, the need to represent all workers, not only the unionised, and to promote employee involvement in the company.

The campaign is based on a consultative document, Towards Industrial Partnership, published by the charitably-funded Involvement & Participation Association, and will seek to involve both sides of industry in discussing a wide range of issues, including product quality, education and training, communications, corporate values and the environment.

Both sides of industry were urged to undertake not to make denigratory statements in public.

The two years of discussions involving both sides of industry that led to publication of the document were prompted by a campaign for a 'new industrial agenda' drawn up by the GMB and the Union of Communication Workers.

'Towards Industrial Partnership', published by the Involvement & Participation Association, 42 Colebrooke Row, London NW1 8AF