MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Merger management
different structures and ideas in place that equality was kind of
seen as maybe a bit dangerous and subversive. Which I think I
wish it was. So from a personal perspective that was quite a
difficult time, about the amount of focus that equality would have
within the merged union. (Interviewee N)
The one area that there was a positive comment about was the
creation of staffing structures which, in some mergers, can take a long
time:-
Certainly, there was a lot of work that took place on staffing -- in
fact, if you're going to take one issue that was actually dealt with
earlier rather than later, it was staffing, getting structures in
place. That was something that took an awful long time in
Unison (Interviewee E)
As mentioned by one of the interviewees, a facilitated senior
management event was held at Eastbourne in April 2000, one of the
managerial responses to the Industrial Society report referred to earlier.
In this session, despite its having been held two years after merger,
initial working groups were defined by their old union membership.
Some of the conclusions reflect managers’ perceptions that the merger
management process, insofar as it can be identified, was not effective:-
• A number of features emerged from the pre-merger groups,
principally a common understanding of the problems and a
broadly similar vision of the kind of union PCS should be. The
"old tribes" are not as far apart as they may have suspected.
• On the other hand there was an honestly self-critical recognition
that the management of the union leaves much to be desired.
For instance, decision making is slow and cumbersome and too
many decisions are made at or near the top rather than where
the problem is.
• It is clear that internal friction and conflict are absorbing
considerable time, energy and other resources, distracting the
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