The Warwick-Acas Lowry lecture 2010

The Warwick-Acas Lowry lecture is held annually in honour of Sir Pat Lowry who was a former Chair of Acas, a visiting professor at The University of Warwick, a member of Warwick Business School's Advisory Board and a close associate of the Industrial Relations Research Unit (IRRU).

IRRU hosts the event, which this year took place at Warwick Business School on Monday 29 March.

The speaker, Richard Lambert, is Director-General of the CBI and Chancellor of the University of Warwick. His lecture, The labour market and employment relations beyond the recession was delivered to an invited and illustrious audience of senior HR managers, trade union officials, employment relations professionals and academics.

Mr Lambert's lecture focussed on the outlook for the labour market and employment relations beyond the recession. He argued that two factors were key to explaining the relative resilience of employment in this recession: structural changes in the labour market, and the development of a new employment relationship in the private sector. This has led to improved working arrangements - enabling employers to tailor work to demand and engage people better, and helping individuals to take more control of their working lives, through developments like flexible working.

Mr Lambert said that these changes had been happening gradually over the last 20 years and that this recession had just made them more obvious to us. He also argued that this new labour market model is here to stay, beyond the recession.

Mr Lambert said: "It's a great honour to be speaking at the Unit on its 40th anniversary. And it's a particular pleasure to be honouring the memory of Sir Pat Lowry, a great figure in the post-war history of industrial relations in the UK."

The Vice-Chancellor of the University, Professor Nigel Thrift, made a short presentation before the lecture, marking IRRU's 40th anniversary this year. "The Industrial Relations Research Unit is one of Europe's leading research centres in their particular field of expertise. Their work informs policy-makers and feeds into top-class teaching. Events such as this lecture enable networking at the highest level, and we are honoured that our Chancellor, Richard Lambert, was able to deliver this year's lecture in such a milestone anniversary year," he commented.

Director of IRRU, Professor Paul Marginson, said, "The public policy agenda has changed since IRRU started in 1970. But the need for independent, critically-informed research remains vital. For instance, current IRRU research for the European Commission is addressing the sustainability of some of the crisis-induced innovations in employment practice that Richard Lambert highlighted in his stimulating lecture."

A PDF of the full speech given by Richard Lambert can be downloaded here.