MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Moral rules and trade union principles
do not involve ourselves with private medicine. We have
abandoned all that which the previous organisation used to do
so we have that ethical stand. We will not deal with other
organisations that we think have dodgy ethics. We have put an
ethical process into our mission --the actual statement of what
we are all about, what are basic aims are about.
UNiFI managers are not, like so many other trade union managers,
specific about their perceptions of what trade union principles actually
are. There is, however, some evidence of approaches to management
derived from attitudes towards issues such as fairness, openness,
consistency, honesty and social responsibility, supported by ethical
statements in the union’s Business Plans. We need now to see
whether it is possible to discern moral rules in their attitudes towards
representative rationality, given that a strategic objective of the union is
to:-
widen membership activity and participation in the Union's
decision making process (UNiFI Business Plan 2001)
There has been some discussion earlier about lay members as a
constraint on managerial behaviour. The point was made that this was
not a generalised view. This does seem to be the case. UNiFI
managers point out perceptions of potential problems with the lay
structure:-
There is a danger I would see in having an organisation that is
more lay member led. With the officials, one hopes you have
the right officials in place because there has been a rigorous
selection process. The lay people, with the election process that
we have, I fear sometimes the members vote for them on the
strength of a pen portrait -- they may not know them too well. I
think the dangers of getting the wrong lay people in key
positions is greater. Not that I have got any specific problems. I
just see the dangers. (Interviewee M)
And some unpleasant experiences:-
Early on I went to the national executive committee meeting.
They were making unreasonable demands. For example, they
wanted a high profile media campaign on this subject and they
wanted it to be just switched on, and maybe switched off, but
more importantly there was an element of if something didn't go
right then it was the Communications department's problem. I
went there and said "well hold on a minute, you may think that
but what about this, and this and this?" I'm into the stage now
where I think that it is more of a waste of time going because
they have got out of the habit. It was quite tough early on
because all the comments you got were negative. You may
have produced one million pieces of paper but one was wrong
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