MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Moral rules and trade union principles
fairness and democracy and you can always see the other side
of the argument. (Interviewee J)
One manager believed, as did interviewee J, that fairness should go
hand in hand with firmness:-
They want fairness and the equity but they also want the
compassion and the hardness. (Interviewee E)
There are related values such as openness:-
We are the first people to complain about lack of consultation
and abuse of process so I think in that sense, that is the way we
would want to do things, involve people and talk to them.
(Interviewee L)
Also inclusion and control over one’s environment:-
Our values as a trade union are all about people in the
workplace being included in decision-making, having a say over
their working lives and I think as a manager of staff, you know,
looking at the staff side of the job, we ought to apply those
values to our own staff. (Interviewee O)
The same manager referred also to the protection of minorities:-
An integral part of our values is to look at the interests of groups
who are excluded by not being part of the majority (Interviewee
O)
At very senior level, values were linked very much to the organisation’s
people:-
Personal belief about how the organisation should be
managed…. I actually believe I understand how our key people
work and what they are feeling and how they react to things…It
is value driven; that's how I think the organisation should be run.
(Interviewee C)
Amongst UNISON managers one can thus discern fairness, equality
and justice as values impacting on their managerial roles, as well as
related values such as openness, inclusion and involvement. An
assertion that moral rules of this kind are significant is supported by the
managerial objectives cited above which talk (inter alia) of good
management practice, lack of discrimination and achieving staff
potential. We look now at managerial approaches to representative
rationality.
One particular observation is an outlier in terms of the values it seems
to signify:-
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