MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

‘Legitimate’ managerial actions - stakeholders
make sure that the view I have is the one that gets carried
through (Interviewee M)
And, more benignly, in offering political advice – in understanding the
political realities:-
Very much the key question in this -- because my view has
always been to lay people, for Christ's sake don't stand in the
way of this. What you have got to do is to control the direction of
it and you won't be able to do that if you stand in the way of it. If
the answer is no, that's a national union matter and we are the
NEC and all that, then what will happen is that discontent will
fester, lay officials and full time officers will get fed up with the
position and you will then have an explosion at conference
which will say, do this. And then you won't have any control
over it. (Interviewee D)
An aspiration shared by a functional manager at headquarters:-
You need to be aware of the organisational politics to be able to
be successful. All organisations have office politics and I think
trade unions have them particularly and so you have to operate,
I think, at that level (Interviewee E)
The union’s Rule Book defines aspects of its governance in that
specific roles, powers and obligations are conferred on different
stakeholders. To what extent does it offer assistance to PCS managers
in their boundary management? One manager is highly positive on that
front:-
I find myself referring to the rule book all the time in ways which
quite surprise me because I think that if you are going to set
rules which, if you like, define the values systems of the union --
you know, not supporting any force in society which fosters
divisions and promoting the interests of minority groups - you
have in your policy work to keep referring back to that, not just
write some glib equality statement which is written in the rule
book and then go and think that you have done it but to keep
referring back and make sure we are doing it and using it. And
there are some other useful structural things in the rules, for
example proportionality on the appointment of delegations which
I have challenged the National Executive on several times and
now they do it. There is also in the model branch constitution a
rule book which suggests that it requires the setting up of a
branch Women's Advisory committee and I have to keep
reminding people about that. There is a legitimacy to what we
are doing and it is grounded in the rule book. It's part of the
principal rules and, if you like, that is why we do what we are
doing and here is the authority for doing it. So, yes, I find it quite
useful (Interviewee N)
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