MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Cognitive rules and culture
NALGO on
NALGO
• We had a kind of
pretence of lay
member leadership
(Interviewee O)
• I always felt that
NALGO had a good
partnership between
full time staff and lay
members, where lay
members’
professional
expertise could be
played into an issue
and officers could
take it up.
(Interviewee L)
• If you go back to
NALGO days, you
had, perhaps,
people with some of
those skills who
were senior
managers in their
own workplaces
who could bring
those skills into
NALGO.
(Interviewee N)
• NALGO had a
partnership with, a
sort of slightly arms
length relationship
with lay members.
There was a full
time cadre who
acted on behalf of,
as you well know,
the lay side and
didn't see
themselves as being
the major
policymakers in any
way (Interviewee K)
NALGO on
NUPE
• The NUPE people
that I spoke to did, I
suppose, strike me
on occasions as
being rather less
inclined to take lay
member views on
board ought to have
almost a suspicion
of lay members that
lay members would
be up to no good or
whatever. That
wasn't universal.
(Interviewee L)
• NUPE and COHSE
rather saw
themselves as being
different and had a
higher respect,
actually, from the
lay side. I suspect
also that they were
much more able to
influence who the
lay side people
were. I think some
of them were hand
picked by the full
time organisation.
(Interviewee K)
• Their argument was
that they
represented low
paid members,
particularly from
NUPE, and that
there was a
particularly different
role for NUPE full
time officers than
there had been for
NALGO. That's
what they argued.
(Interviewee E)
286
NALGO on
COHSE
• COHSE did seem to
strike me as very
much into the
professional health
mode. A lot of their
officials had a health
background so a
dialogue of equals.
That is not to do
down NALGO and
NUPE but I think
there was a more
structured sort of
relationship. I know
Albert Spanswick
had been a nurse. I
know most of the
COHSE officials had
come from a nursing
background. There
was probably more
synthesis between
staff and lay
members.(Interview
ee L)
NALGO on
UNISON
• Now, I think,
generally in Unison I
am quite positive
about that because I
think we have
moved to a position
where there is
acknowledgment
that we do have a
role and putting
forward issues for
policy consideration,
even making
recommendations
and being quite
forthright in terms of
the direction we
think the union
should go in. I think
it's much better and
more open now and
I think it's more
accepted within the
union. (Interviewee
O)
• I think gradually as
we have developed
more into Unison,
personally I think
people have seen
the value of
partnership working
with the lay
members. I think on
occasions it is
slightly manipulative
but that is sort of the
nature of political
organisation.
(Interviewee L)
• It is very similar to
what it was in
NALGO. I think the
way we function -- if
it is on a continuum
from 0 to 100 and
you start with 0 at
no lay member
control and 100 is
where everything is
dealt with by lay
members, in terms
of where we are, it is
much more in the
top quartile towards
the NALGO side
than it would be
anywhere else.
(Interviewee E)