MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Trade union managers
Most of the time I do. I'm still slightly gobsmacked, like a lot of
people, I think. You go into a job -- I always wanted to be on the
national negotiating side and when I became a National Officer,
many moons ago in NALGO, in a sense I thought I had made it,
you know. That was what I wanted to do. But I was aware, I
think you couldn't help but be aware, because people started
coming into your office and asking you things. Can they do this,
what are we going to do about that and they ask you not should
we put in this claim or how are we going to deal with that, they
started to ask you personal things and issues and then you sort
of realise you have got to fill in forms and so on so that there is a
slightly wider dimension but I certainly think in my early days it
was -- you know, that was the sort of 10 percent type role. You
ticked a leave sheet or if somebody looked a bit off you would
ask them what was wrong and then get out of the room as
quickly as possible before they told you. But, as you know,
because you were instrumental, we did start to think more
deeply about our roles as people managers and the need to
manage the organisation and its resources. I think now, from
where we have gone into Unison and so on, probably over the
course of a year it varies from week to week but is probably
more like 50% of my time, even more, is spent in the
management role (Interviewee L)
It could be to some extent involuntary:-
Unfortunately almost wholly, now. That's a very important point.
I guess it's not just Unison in that sense but when I became a
divisional officer of NUPE in 1979, just as the winter of
discontent started, before that I was a fully engaged operating
officer with area responsibilities and so forth whilst being a
deputy divisional officer with a degree of management
experience and if you asked me to put a percentage on that I
would say that 5% of my time was managing. As a divisional
officer it was probably 80% of the time still heavily engaged in
collective bargaining and representation and so forth and 20
percent managing. Now, 10 years on into Unison, as a manager
in Unison at regional level, leaving aside the other functions I
have nationally, it is 95 percent management. (Interviewee M)
Or ineffective:-
If I saw myself as a trade union manager I should preface that
by saying that I was an ineffective trade union manager. I am
not sure that managers in trade unions have a great deal of
effect (interviewee A)
One manager suggested, however, that there was a management
ethos that had developed since merger:-
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