MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Deploying resources
wonderful discussion over 8 pints of bitter. I’ve never been able
to get to the bottom of it myself. But I don’t think it’s a right wing
agenda. I think it’s a radical agenda to give power to the
members. That’s all I want to do, to give power to the members.
People can say that’s a left or a right wing agenda. You can pay
your money and take your choice, but it’s pretty radical stuff.
You can trust them. They are well-organised, well-educated
people. What’s wrong with us? (Interviewee K)
It was not clear at the time of the research – and it is certainly not clear
now when the new process has resulted in the amendment of some of
the Principal Rules – how far these new values were shared:-
We have a Rule Book that marginalises Conference. Which is
deeply saddening because Conference should be something
positive and have something to contribute and something that
people go away from feeling refreshed and ready for the next
period back in the branches. We’ve got so caught up in the
politics here, between the Executive and the Honorary Officers,
that actually Conference is a bit inessential. There are certain
rules they can change, they can make certain decisions, they
can call for certain things, but under the Rules they can’t actually
make those things happen (Interviewee H)
At the present time, it is inevitable that there is a huge war going
on between the Executive Committee, which got elected on the
back of aims and values, Principal Rules, a member-centred
union and the lay delegates who are still saying ‘Conference is
the primary decision-making body, the Parliament of the
organisation’ which I don’t believe is the case. It never was the
case. And so inevitably you are going to get ‘yah, boo, sucks.’
(Interviewee K)
PCS is a fascinating union in these areas. The systems of moral rules
influencing managers in the management of their relationship with the
democratic structures are so unusual, so controversial with many
activists – even with the new General Secretary who now celebrates
the regaining of activist control by the replacement of biennial
conferences with annual ones – that it is not surprising if managers
express a variety of views. They do, however, think seriously about the
issues and about their roles, even if their ideals of what constitutes
‘widespread membership involvement in the representative process’,
and how that should be operationalised, differ. As will be seen later,
this will affect how they go about the task of managing the boundaries
between the various stakeholder groups.
Managerial Activities
Deploying Resources
6.12. In the discussion above about PCS’s financial systems, there was no
mention of monitoring performance. The systems seemed rather
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