MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Managing by information
way. Neither is there anything necessarily wrong with the
differing styles of management, but again there are central
messages and issues that staff need to be aware of, be involved
in and as necessary be consulted upon - and here we are
concerned with the issue of equality and diversity and the policy
of the union on these matters. At present there do not appear to
be the systems in place which ensure that consistent
management input and information in relation to staff is
provided. (Delivering on Equality 2000)
In some unions, the rather old-fashioned practice of concentrating
communication on the staff trade unions has been adopted but this
does not seem to have been the case here:-
There has not been that regular dialogue, a structured approach
to industrial relations (Interviewee N)
A search was undertaken of the use of the word ‘communication’ by
CWU managers and in only one case was it used in the context of
communication with staff directly and then it was offering an
explanation of the difficulty of communication:-
A business manager deals with employees in a situation where
he is providing a service or a product and there is a clear line of
communication. You do not have the other lines which operate
within a trade union. What you have got is two roles which would
run in tandem (Interviewee D)
New management has begun to tackle this. A Senior Management
Team and an Assistant Secretaries Forum have been established and
the union’s newspaper is now being sent to all staff at their home
addresses:-
If you can get people to buy in and have a bit more of a view.
One of the things we introduced was, like, a tiny little thing,
everybody who worked in this building never ever got the union's
journal to their home address. Now the argument was that when
the Voice comes out, it is put on everyone's desk and it is in the
foyer and if you want to look at it, you can. Of course, you never
read it in work. When you get it at home, people are more
inclined to read it and the reason why I have done that was a lot
of the staff said "well why do we want to get it at home"; but if we
are losing 30,000 jobs, in financial terms that is called a revenue
stream. If we only lose half of that, it's still 15,000 jobs or 20,000
jobs. That is 15,000 £2 whatevers. That is a lot of money and
you've got to be aware of that. (Interviewee B)
The Strategic Plan has also recognised the issue. In its Investors in
People section there is an objective:-
109