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MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

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Moral rules and trade union principles<br />

do not involve ourselves with private medicine. We have<br />

abandoned all that which the previous organisation used to do<br />

so we have that ethical stand. We will not deal with other<br />

organisations that we think have dodgy ethics. We have put an<br />

ethical process into our mission --the actual statement of what<br />

we are all about, what are basic aims are about.<br />

UNiFI managers are not, like so many other trade union managers,<br />

specific about their perceptions of what trade union principles actually<br />

are. There is, however, some evidence of approaches to management<br />

derived from attitudes towards issues such as fairness, openness,<br />

consistency, honesty and social responsibility, supported by ethical<br />

statements in the union’s Business Plans. We need now to see<br />

whether it is possible to discern moral rules in their attitudes towards<br />

representative rationality, given that a strategic objective of the union is<br />

to:-<br />

widen membership activity and participation in the Union's<br />

decision making process (UNiFI Business Plan 2001)<br />

There has been some discussion earlier about lay members as a<br />

constraint on managerial behaviour. The point was made that this was<br />

not a generalised view. This does seem to be the case. UNiFI<br />

managers point out perceptions of potential problems with the lay<br />

structure:-<br />

There is a danger I would see in having an organisation that is<br />

more lay member led. With the officials, one hopes you have<br />

the right officials in place because there has been a rigorous<br />

selection process. The lay people, with the election process that<br />

we have, I fear sometimes the members vote for them on the<br />

strength of a pen portrait -- they may not know them too well. I<br />

think the dangers of getting the wrong lay people in key<br />

positions is greater. Not that I have got any specific problems. I<br />

just see the dangers. (Interviewee M)<br />

And some unpleasant experiences:-<br />

Early on I went to the national executive committee meeting.<br />

They were making unreasonable demands. For example, they<br />

wanted a high profile media campaign on this subject and they<br />

wanted it to be just switched on, and maybe switched off, but<br />

more importantly there was an element of if something didn't go<br />

right then it was the Communications department's problem. I<br />

went there and said "well hold on a minute, you may think that<br />

but what about this, and this and this?" I'm into the stage now<br />

where I think that it is more of a waste of time going because<br />

they have got out of the habit. It was quite tough early on<br />

because all the comments you got were negative. You may<br />

have produced one million pieces of paper but one was wrong<br />

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