MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Merger management
On the Executive, however, a view was that the lay members were not
so divided:-
The people on the Executive, the people who managed to
change, I think did have a spirit of generosity. (Interviewee A)
But, in 2002, generosity did not appear to mean cultural cohesion:-
When B became General Secretary -- and perhaps he'll tell you
this -- he actually sent a document round saying "I keep hearing
this word culture and (something like) it is a load of rubbish, it's
just an excuse for not changing". Something along those lines
and I thought, perhaps you have got a point there because I was
guilty of it as well saying, oh yes, we come from different
cultures. And I think it goes back to the constituencies.
Whether people confused culture and constituency because if
you interviewed people on the postal side, certainly to me from
outside they operate differently to people on the engineering
side and people on the clerical side. (Interviewee F)
These difficulties are of course exacerbated in the CWU by the
continued and, at the moment, inevitable existence of the two industrial
Executives. The new building was used in part to try to create more
social relations between lay members who have a suite of offices on
the top floor of the building and it is suggested that there is some social
intercourse arising from that which has been helpful. However:-
You find them mixing a lot more than they used to. But then
when you go and look on NEC days in the canteen, you see all
the engineering group together, all the clerical group and they
tend to perpetuate things (Interviewee D)
The lay members of the NEC, who are not permanently based in
this building but have to come here regularly have got a suite of
offices on the fourth floor. They have created artificial barriers.
You will find that there will be four postal people in one, four
engineers in another and the operator and ancillaries grades in
another -- they have just done that themselves (Interviewee N)
As anticipated, these managers display perceptions of the importance
of culture in the merger, if something of a lack of control over the
management of it as far as the industrial structure and the lay members
are concerned. The new General Secretary, however is seeking to
tackle the issues:-
We have had all these studies and the intention is to look
towards restructuring the union to bring in what we were
expecting to get out of merger which is economies of scale and
unity of purpose.
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