MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

‘Legitimate’ managerial actions - stakeholders
constituent groups -- instead of addressing the cultural issues
behind the resistance to changing the rulebook. (Interviewee L)
But it has to be said that there does not appear to be, in the CWU, the
feeling that one sometimes gets in some other unions that the elected
members are a nuisance. This could be because the electoral culture is
so ingrained that it is intuitively accepted – that representative
rationality forms a moral norm which is deeply rooted; or it could be
because there is no prospect of changing it – that managers exhibit
resigned behavioural compliance. This is not to say, however, that
dilemmas are not identifiable:-
If the membership make a ridiculous decision, as they
sometimes can, then, you know, from day one you are almost,
even in a Freudian sense, seeking to undermine it. You may not
be thinking you are doing that but you would think, how do I get
out of this? You have probably faced it. We have all been
there. But your job is none the less to say look, I don't think you
should do that because of y. Now a good leader in my
judgment, at the end of a particular period, the members will
listen to that person over a period of time. Not always. And of
course sometimes, and all conferences have this problem and
all officers have this problem, you can spend six months on an
agreement and come to a conference and one speech lasting
six minutes destroys all your work. But that just goes with the
territory, you know. (Interviewee B)
And some managers exhibit a positive approach to the involvement of
lay members in areas which they have not otherwise been involved in.
Two examples were cited earlier; a senior manager involving lay
members in hands on negotiations and the creation of new lay
structures to examine financial matters:-
I am the one who has to sit down with the accountants and
make sure that we are spending the money in the right way,
prepare budgets for the following year. I am now going to make
sure that matter becomes the responsibility of the Finance and
Admin committee. I do not see that as diminishing my
responsibility but I think about it and more transparency in the
union's finances and then you can place that in front of the NEC
(Interviewee N).
However, the actual management of that situation involves a very overt
power strategy:-
The detail that gets discussed at the Finance and Admin
committee is whatever I decide. Whatever I decide to put to
them is what we will discuss. So if I just go to the next Finance
and Admin committee and say "not a lot has happened and here
is a document about a branch in South Wales that wants to buy
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