MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Conclusions
enough, it's not highly regimented, you can't tell people what do.
It's not the style of the organisation. (Interviewee A)
Trade unions are often criticised for managing consensually and failing
to achieve things, often by people who do not fully appreciate the issue
mentioned by this manager. There are different styles in UNiFI but
most of those described are on the consensual side of any continuum,
reflecting, by accident or design, a degree of people orientation.
7.18. CONCLUSIONS
Trade Union Managers
There is full acceptance within UNiFI that those interviewed have a
managerial role. However, perhaps displaying a lack of confidence that
the message had spread as far as all those undertaking trade union
roles, some reservations were expressed about whether all but a few
senior people shared that acceptance. This illustrates the fact that,
maybe in all trade unions, the concept of management is new enough
for managers to perceive that it may need to carry with it some form of
health warning.
Systems
Resource Distribution Systems
UNiFI’s systems are centralised. This does not seem to be a matter of
high policy but merely that it was deemed necessary on merger to
retain control of the finances. BIFU’s budgetary systems had, it was
reported, been devolved prior to merger. UNiFI has been in some
financial difficulties for some time and has embarked on what it calls
Project Recovery in order to try to turn things round. This would also
indicate that central control of finances would be likely to be required,
as in any example of turnaround management. And, as in any example
in an organisation where people do not ‘own’ a system, there are
reservations expressed about its efficacy.
Lay members are involved in the system through a committee of the
NEC and it appears that the principal element in many budgets is
meetings costs; an interface with the democratic system which has
implications for how lay members carry out their representative
functions.
Physical resource allocation takes place in the light of the decision to
retain three head offices in the union on merger. It is a shared view that
this was essential in order to deliver the merger, though some
destabilisation might have occurred when the Bournemouth office
closed in April 2002. The layout of space allocated has, after the initial
organisation of function after merger, been at regional level. More than
in most unions, there are managerial views that the type of work
undertaken in trade unions (except in functional spaces like
Communications and IT) lends itself to cellular space rather than open
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