MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Merger management
‘Meaningful ’Managerial Actions
Merger Management
7.11. The merger that created UNiFI took place later than the mergers of the
other unions where this research took place. The union agreed a period
of a year, until May 2000, which was a ‘transitional period’ which
inhibited the process of merger management:-
We went through a transitional period and during the transitional
period the ability of senior management to do anything was
restricted because everything was part of the merger document -
certain tablets of stone would be there and the sacred cows in
each organisation were there for a period of time (Interviewee O)
After that period, however:-
What we set out to do was really to look at a way in which we
could end, and end quite quickly, the culture that said that
someone belonged to BIFU, NatWest Staff Association or the
old UNiFI and get into the mindset that said that said it's Unifi
from now on and that's what prevailed. (Interviewee O)
A view about which there are other opinions:-
I think the complication for some people is that some of the old
BIFU cultures are still in the ether and we are trying to kill them
in order to create a new culture for the organisation. You get
people harking back to the days when we did things this way.
Well, so what. Just because we did this way does not mean that
it is right. We have cherry picked some of the best practice. And
we still are trying to ditch a lot of old practices and develop new
ones (interviewee E)
I'm not convinced that some of them don't think they are still
BIFU. And that's a problem. That's a problem. ( Interviewee B)
Other strategic actions were undertaken to try to cement the new
organisation, particularly in terms of its becoming the core of a new
grouping of finance sector unions by guaranteeing the autonomy of
company bargaining:-
Convincing people of the autonomy that the constitution allows
the national committees. Convincing people as to why the
constitution was actually constructive in that particular way and
the advantages that we believe it brings. Not least saying to all
the other 30 organisations operating in finance that if they join
UNiFI then they can enjoy a degree of autonomy. And then, I
suppose, actually policing that in saying to people "well, you
might want to interfere, you might think that you are the ultimate
policy-making body or decision maker in this process but, sorry,
that is not the way it is." (Interviewee C)
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