MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Cognitive rules and culture
In the new union, and certainly in the old BIFU my perception is
that it was completely the other way round. We used to say that
the General Secretary of BIFU could not scratch his arse without
asking the executive whether it was all right. And I personally
think that that's gone far too much the other way. As a result of
the merger I suspect that the ex BIFU people probably feel that
the power, the influence of the lay members has been reduced,
and no doubt it has but it is not all that evident to me. They still
want to manage everything. They seem frankly to be incapable
of taking a strategic view about our industry and providing clear
direction on what strategy should be and leading the full time
people to get on and do it. Of course we should be accountable.
I have been a trade union official for nearly 30 years. I grew up
with it. And we should be accountable but being accountable,
holding us to account and interfering with what we do are two
quite different things. I think that's one of the issues that we are
still frankly trying to resolve within the merged union.
(Interviewee F)
But, although expressing similar view about old UNiFI, another
manager takes a more sanguine view of developments in the merged
union:-
The old UNiFI certainly was an organisation for many, many
years where the General Secretary was the centre and I always
remember a conference where there was a new representative
and he stood up and said "this is my first meeting and I have
spoken to x who used to be a representative and he told me just
to do what the General Secretary said." And that probably
summed up the organisation as it was then. The organisation
grew up as it needed to and it actually changed at a time when
the number of managerial people on the executive committee
diminished and the number of younger, non managerial people,
came on who were looking for running the union their way. They
were people who had contact outside. When we joined the TUC
and they started mixing with people who actually believed that
they controlled their unions from a lay perspective, they sought
to bring that degree of lay participation more and more into a
union. I have to say that that caused conflict on some occasions
because it was anathema to some, who had been in the old
union, and equally some of the people just did not want to
change from what it was. But it had to go that way. So the union
became more lay dominated. There was a time when there was
an uneasy stand-off but I think that in general terms, after going
through that stand-off when we got a new General Secretary
who thought that he was going to proceed the way the old
General Secretary had, found out that he couldn't. Then there
was an acceptance and a partnership between the two.
(Interviewee C)
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