MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Conclusions
plan space. This is not wholly shared but the emphasis is different from
that in some other unions.
Systems related to cognitive rules
UNiFI managers perceive their union to operate as a partnership
between managers and lay members. They come to this, however,
from different traditions; from staff associations which exhibited high
General Secretary influence (maybe decreasing over the years) to a
trade union which was well known for the interventionist nature of its
lay members. That lay members still exert an unusual degree of
influence may be illustrated by the fact that senior lay members are
members of the Senior Management Group.
However, as in many areas in UNiFI the symbol of lay member
influence, or lack of it, is the principle of company committee autonomy.
This automatically limits the power of the NEC and sets out a very clear
boundary in its influence. Some managers, particularly in the light of
their partner union experience, are still unhappy that lay members have
too much potential for control; others, from BIFU, believe there has
been a substantial change in the direction of managerial authority.
But there are ways in which management itself has problematic
features, based on people’s experiences on trade unions and the
expectations of trade union officers who ‘do not like being interfered
with.’ It may not be valued; or else trade unionists may be
‘embarrassed’ to manage, taking into account that in partner union
days the concept may not have been given any credence in some
unions. Some managers have found these factors a problem more than
others and some believe that the issue is not necessarily the
acceptance of resistance to management but the nature of
management that is offered. However, there is a view that
management of performance or conduct is particularly difficult in UNiFI,
several comments on which suggest that this is a cultural feature of the
union rather than the effect of any deficiency in the systems
themselves.
Systems related to moral rules
With one exception, UNiFI managers who expressed a view about their
core trade union principles related them to relationships with people.
They talk of fairness, doing as you would be done by, nurturing,
openness, consistency. One manager, as so many do, talked about
trade union principles as though they assumed that the interviewer
knew what they were but without specifying them further.
These principles also seem to extend to relationships with the lay
structure. There are significant examples of managers who find the lay
structure constraining. Some managers also point out problems,
potential and real, with the structure. However, in most cases, even
where this is done, they seem to believe that things are improving or
basically satisfactory. Some are very positive about their relationships,
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