MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Deploying resources
themselves elected by all the members and wanting to control
everything in the union just now and they are even more like that
because the stuff that used to be national bargaining, pay, major
conditions of employment, is all swept away from the NEC.
(Interviewee D)
However, some principles could be identified relating to the deployment
of resources within the union:-
It is often said by the larger groups that the smaller groups get
more resources pro rata and I am sure that’s true. That’s what
we have unions for. When push comes to shove, you are able to
manage these groups because you come back to them and say;
‘it is right that smaller groups, of perhaps lower paid workers, get
more of our resources because we are a trade union. It’s one of
the advantages of managing a trade union that often you can go
back to the first instincts of why people join trade unions to help
you to manage the organisation as well. (Interviewee K)
A principle that was acknowledged elsewhere:-
The role of a union manager does involve relationships with
different groups and clusters of members for example through
the equality network. This is almost an issue of “seeing fair play”
almost an arbitrator role. For example, it is very easy for the
largest group of members to dominate. One of the functions of
union managers is to say “what about that group of members” -
for example small groups like coastguards or foresters whose
voices would otherwise not be heard. This is a protective type
role. (Interviewee F)
And which other managers honour in the practice:-
We have got one large group in particular in the team and in a
way it is ensuring that they do not get all the staff doing the work
for that one particular group. That's in a way the way our work is
dished out at the moment, ensuring that doesn't happen. The
allocation of work to the various officers, to make certain that
even the smaller agencies have got the time. I expect the
officers to allocate their time fairly and I leave it to them to do it.
(Interviewee O)
I think the explicit managerial approach was that when we first
became PCS, the ex CPSA side very much did it in terms of
"that works out at so much per head". I thought that was wrong
because there is a whole host of reasons why so much per head
does not work. So it came out of my head that I thought we had
to get them away from this as a way of looking at things, which I
have done. I suppose that the consequence of that is that the
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