MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

‘Legitimate’ managerial actions - stakeholders
to the point -- is it in the interests of the trade union, is it in the
interests of the members? (Interviewee L)
This latter sentence expresses this particular manager’s criterion for
the resolution of conflict amongst stakeholders within the union. The
importance of having a strategy in the area of company autonomy was
emphasised by one manager:-
The responsibility for those who are in that sector, both from the
lay and the full-time structures, in the national company is huge.
Huge temptation not to get involved in any other structures and
to plough their own furrow and therefore continually to
antagonise those who have a different view. Balancing,
managing that, the potential for tit for tat because there are
some things that they have to come for approval for and
therefore the potential is that each time they come and ask for
something the answer is no. Which is again not going to achieve
the aim of harmonising and unifying the organisation.
(Interviewee C)
There are two other approaches which managers identify. The first is
something of a political strategy:-
I think you go back to what you want to achieve out of each
exchange. What is the purpose of it anyway? It is almost that
you decide how, in the nicest possible terms, you are going to
manipulate interest groups to achieve that. (Interviewee G)
The second may involve deploying something of a core trade union skill
in managing stakeholder conflict:-
My role I think here's in some ways as a facilitator. You have the
staff, the full time officers, or with roles and responsibilities. You
have the lay structure of the union who have their agenda, their
priorities and some know those need to be brought into one.
Sometimes there is huge potential for conflict, particularly when
you start looking at things like money, budgets, priorities, the
way you go. So facilitating in terms of trying to bring those two
parts together. (Interviewee C)
Boundaries in UNiFI, therefore, are contested. Some are unclear. But
effort in this area has tended to be dominated by the potential boundary
conflict between the role of company committees and the role of the
NEC and the management of this has been an issue, both for very
senior managers and also for those managers who have negotiating
responsibilities within the union. Unusually, managers find the Rule
Book of particular importance in helping to manage the situation –
simply because this rule was such a corner stone of the new union that
its defence and literal application become a strategic responsibility of
management.
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