MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

‘Legitimate’ managerial actions - stakeholders
They ground their way through the Rule Book, which is
important. It's important as a marker because it just says, this
formalises why we exist (Interviewee A)
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 O)
We have to comply with the Rule Book and we have to comply
with UNiFI policy as set out at the annual conference but that is
that. We have no interference from the NEC into how we
conduct our industrial relations and the same goes for the other
institutions., the national Company committees in Barclays and
Lloyds etc. and that was absolutely crucial, the autonomy for
the national Company committees in each of the institutions.
(Interviewee M)
One of the things for which I take credit in the negotiations
leading up to the merger was insistence on a new rule in the
merged union's Rule Book which preserved autonomy on
industrial relations issues for the national company committee.
Needless to say, I flogged that to death (Interviewee F)
Another manager finds the Rule Book important for another reason:-
The rule book is a help to me in any area that I deal with at the
moment because it's there in black and white that my members
in small organisations have got the same rights and as much call
on the union’s resources as anybody else. (Interviewee H)
Only one manager expresses a more cautious approach:-
I believe that the rules and constitution of the trade union are
important but I do not believe that they are a stick to be beaten
with. I think that the constitution and rules of a trade union
cannot cover every aspect of our lives. We ensure that the
structures that we set up abide by the constitution and the rules
and we obviously recognise that the supreme governance of the
union is the Conference and a policy that they lay down and all
the rest of it. But as far as I am concerned, we submit claims to
the employer, we don't deliver ultimata. That's not what we are
about. It is about the art of the possible and, again, I come back
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