MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Merger management
The merger was always a difficult one in terms of the different
backgrounds, industrial experiences and cultures of the two old
unions:-
How did we merge those two cultures? Well, with great
difficulty….they are not there yet….. The way we decided to play
it, wrongly or rightly, is -- let's just push for the merger. If we try
to sort out all the issues prior to the merger, we will never
merge. The enemies of merger never said they were against
merger because it wasn't politically correct but they would find
road blocks to put in the way, so let's give them as few
opportunities as we can. We engaged Lord McCarthy, Bill
McCarthy, who was very good. He said, there has to be a spirit
of generosity here. We are not negotiating with an employer.
You know, your comrades are round the table. You are trying to
forge a better union. That was a very powerful message. And
so we decided to get the main things sorted out, merge and then
other things would be sorted out afterwards. We merged with
three very distinct cultures, all with their own constitutional
safeguards. (Interviewee A)
The problem for the CWU was not just the industrial demarcation
between the postal and telecoms industrial sections but also the ex-
CPSA clerical group, whose interests had been protected in the Rule
Book so that (Rules 15.1.5 and 15.2.4) rule changes could not be
passed without a majority in each of the three sections. At the time of
merger, the clerical group had their own view of what the merger would
bring:-
One of these senior clerical Executive Council members there
was very vocal -- no, it wasn't going to be a merger, it was going
to be a federation and I think perhaps they still see that to an
extent. And to some extent I think they still see themselves, you
know, you have a postal section, and engineering section and a
clerical section. We are recruiting in other areas now and I think
they still see themselves as operating fairly autonomously
(Interviewee F)
The tensions between the three groups surfaced very early, however,
when at the first Rules Revision Conference in September 1995:-
Suddenly these three constitutional groups, the posties were
voting for a change to impose their culture on the other two bits.
I was so disappointed with people who I had persuaded to go
into merger and then totally lost their spirit of generosity, you
know, we are going to do things the old UCW way. But of
course they couldn't because of the constitutional safeguards
and every time the clerics stuck up for themselves as a minority
group, the posties started to get really angry (interviewee A)
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