As a trade unionist, my role in negotiations is to increase the proportion of national wealth allocated to the trade union members I represent, while others want to maintain the status quo or shift wealth in other directions. The issue at stake is simple. Wealth is created and shared through profit, reinvestment or taxation which is then redistributed towards services, the support of the disadvantaged in society, the running of the State etc. The process can only begin if wealth is created in the first instance, which is conditional on whether we are competitive. The trade union movement is committed to competitiveness because its members know there is no future without it. We will work on this as well as on the control of inflation and the expansion of the economy.