MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

merger management because NALGO staff dominated to such an
extent.
8.5. Merger clearly took place some time before this research commenced.
However, merger management issues were still visible and
interviewees usually had no difficulty talking about them. As mentioned
in Chapter 1, managers had set themselves a 10 year task to build the
new union from a cultural point of view. This task was made more
difficult when, in 1994, UNISON suffered a financial crisis which led to
its implementing a major voluntary redundancy scheme in the autumn
of that year which led to hundreds of staff leaving the organisation. In
many ways this was more traumatic than the merger itself. It is said
that it reversed many of the efforts which had been put into change
management up to that point and probably contributed to the length of
the organisation building progress.
8.6. In 1994, UNISON embarked on a project to set up a new head office
for the new organisation. Three buildings were shortlisted and firm
negotiations commenced. However, Annual Conference of that year, in
an emergency debate, instructed the NEC to cease negotiations. In
consequence, decisions were made to close the old COHSE office as a
head office (converting it to a regional office) and to split the staff
between the NUPE office in Woolwich and the NALGO one in Kings
Cross. The closure of the COHSE office in Banstead was painful and
led to the former General Secretary of the union being accused of
betrayal. Few people who had to switch offices were happy. In 1999,
when head office staff had reduced to under 1000, all central staff were
located in the old NALGO office in Kings Cross.
8.7. UNISON has a declared membership of 1,272,700 in the current year,
of which around 73% are female. It has 13 regional offices, dealing with
a good deal of devolved bargaining – for example with regional utility
companies and Trust employers in the NHS. Regional lay structures,
very much in the ex NALGO tradition, are in existence in these regions.
However, only one officer, the General Secretary, is elected.
Interviewees
8.8. The strategy with UNISON was to attempt to interview all of the most
senior people at national level. One identified person was about to take
maternity leave and so was not available. It was considered important
to interview the Regional Secretary in Scotland because the perception
of national managers was that Scotland was ‘different’. There were only
three female Regional Secretaries so one was chosen, on the basis of
who responded first to an e-mail. The final Regional Secretary was
chosen because he was at UNISON head office when another
interview was being arranged. In terms of gender and partner union
origin, the overall approach was the same as PCS.
Interviewees were:-
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