MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Cognitive rules and culture
It crystallised for you different attitudes between those who
wanted to have the resources and the power of the resources to
do something and those who were quite happy to have the
personnel section and the accommodation section because they
had got somebody to moan at. (Interviewee B)
The issue of lay member involvement might also be a factor:-
The personnel role is, I think, limited because of lay involvement
in the democratic structure and the number of people who might
be involved in decision-making, particularly appointments and
the whole political influence there. I think you can't be purists in
personnel practice in trade unions. It doesn't happen.
(Interviewee N)
This point is made by others in different contexts, first in terms of
perceptions of the decision-making process as a whole:-
I think that what you get is more political control and managerial
control in that you cannot just go off on your own and negotiate
a contract for this or spend money on devices that you have
evaluated. There is a whole bureaucratic control and process. It
all comes back really to the politics again and the political nature
of the organisation where you either start going round the official
channels creating proposals and going to the HO management
team with this and then getting a paper presented to one of the
committees or you do it the back door route, you do all your
lobbying beforehand and say that I have got this great idea, why
don't you and I work together and then go through the
organisational process. You cannot suddenly say that you want
to try out these personal digital organisers and see if that is
useful and then organise a roll out programme. You are running
through treacle a wee bit (Interviewee E)
Secondly in terms of possible political consequences of taking
decisions of a controversial nature:-
I think there is always going to be a concern, whether it is in a
trade union headquarters or a regional office or whatever, that if
things get to a stage where staff take the view that they are
going to have to take industrial action, trade unions as
employers are then in the public domain and that can be
extremely damaging for the individual trade union and damaging
for the trade union movement. So trade unions as employers
are always going to feel under a degree of pressure to avoid that
at all costs (Interviewee D)
It is clear that cultural and experiential factors have an influence on the
way in which PCS managers undertake their roles. In terms of the
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