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Blair promotes flexible working City academies are future - Blair
(about 9 hours later)
The economy and employees needs to be "flexible", Tony Blair is to say in a speech about work. One day every secondary school will be a trust or a city academy, Tony Blair has predicted.
His ideas about "flexi-Britain" include urging employees to adapt quickly to the needs of their bosses to keep the "knowledge economy" moving. He said it would be the norm for schools to engage outside partners, adding that the key to future economic success lay in workforce flexibility.
In return, employees should benefit from family-friendly hours and workplace rights. Mr Blair made his prediction in the latest in a series of speeches aimed at securing his political legacy.
Mr Blair will say the government's role should be to encourage skills training while protecting workers' rights. The prime minister is keen to complete reforms of public services before he steps down later this year.
In a speech in Manchester on Friday, he is to say: "The modern world of work is defined by flexibility. His previous speeches have covered community cohesion, defence, criminal justice and public health.
Benefits It will be the norm for schools to have outside partners Tony Blair
"But, in the 1980s, flexibility was a term that was owned by the political right. Mr Blair said in order to succeed, employment patterns needed to stress the individual empowerment of employee whilst avoiding conflict with the needs of employers.
"It was the demand that employers made, to be released from regulation, to make hiring and firing easier... We saw that you could have a flexible labour market and a flexible labour force." He was speaking to an audience of business people at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester.
He will also say: "Time was when government saw itself as sponsor of champion industries or a direct employer of first resort. Mr Blair said the nature of work patterns had changed, as had the role of government.
"In the knowledge economy, the role of government is to ensure that the economy is flexible, to the benefit of all rather than at the cost of the workforce." "The rule now is not to interfere with the necessary flexibility an employer requires to operate successfully in a highly fluid, rapidly changing economic market.
Mr Blair's speech is the latest in a series on future policy direction after he stands down as prime minister. "It is to equip the employee to survive, prosper and develop in such a market; to give them the flexibility to be able to choose a wide range of jobs and to fit family and work life together," he said.
'Powerful' employees
"In our schools, this revolution in thinking is well under way.
"In time to come, every secondary school is likely to be a trust or academy school."
He continued: "It will be the norm for schools to have outside partners. The challenge today is to make the employee powerful, not in conflict with the employer but in terms of their market ability in the modern workforce.
"It is to reclaim flexibility for them, to make it about their empowerment, their ability to fulfil their aspirations."
Mr Blair said that at the end of the 1980s industrial restructuring was inevitable because the world had changed making job protection through regulation increasingly outdated.