MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

‘Legitimate’ managerial actions - stakeholders
We also have a policy that we will not take phone calls from
members. There are two reasons for this. One is that there are
resource issues which would not allow some of our other stuff to
happen the other is that we actually think that they are better
serviced going to the relevant part of the organisation.
(Interviewee J)
These thoughts connote a clear approach to the management of
boundaries between managers and the lay structure. In unions, one of
the most common issues here relates to staffing and this is something
which featured in managers’ observations:-
Sometimes they will try and lay down mandates which say we
must have x - officials out all recruiting, that's an order. Well if
they gave that order, we'd have to do it but we manage without
because staffing matters are not matters which are allowable for
discussion at the Executive Committee and/or Conference.
You're not allowed to discuss it. That's a matter between the
union's Management Team and the GMB as a formal structure.
That's how it's managed, basically. (Interviewee A)
The same interviewee also has a clear view of how potentially
conflictual relationships should be defined:-
What I don't approve of is full time officers ganging up against
the membership because that's not their job. Their job is to work
with the membership and I very much encourage that and not to
say well, it would be OK if it wasn't for the members. These
bloody members, if they don't want that, they want something
else. Well, of course they do. They're paying your wages. That
doesn't mean they can order you about from day to day - go and
get the coal, feed the cat, that sort of stuff. But they've got a call
because that's what they're paying their union for. (Interviewee
A)
One manager relates his approach to interfacing with aspects of the
political structure:-
I think my job is to ensure that, wherever practicable, logic and
commonsense prevails and not political dogma. And fortunately
at the moment the ultra left influence in the union is not very
strong. A few years ago there was a core of Trotskyist elements
and we did have problems. And it is difficult to weigh up if that is
a managerial role or whether it is just the gut reaction which
says that you close ranks so that every time the head comes
above the parapet you kick it. That's effectively the attitude that
prevailed with me in respect of the Socialist Workers Party and
Militant. I just saw them as a danger to our democracy in terms
of how they operated. In the union at the moment it is not a
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