MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Moral rules and trade union principles
The really big advantage of working for an organisation like (T, a
firm of solicitors) is that there is none of this lay member crap.
It's not there; it just doesn't figure. They don't understand. You
talk to people in T and they don't know really what you're talking
about. They have got no experience of it. Actually trying to
manage in an organisation where there isn't any of that is
actually quite refreshing. (Interviewee A)
We saw earlier that UNISON managers tended to talk of partnership
when describing the working relationships between managers and lay
activists. Their attitudes seem to be broad commitment to that ideal
together with an awareness of areas where the ideal has not been
achieved or, if it has, where it could be improved:-
My own values, my identification with the union's values lead me
to be very sympathetic to and supportive of partnership working.
But because there are these grey areas which lead to things
blowing up and having confrontations about things, it does make
you a little bit hesitant about the partnership working, more than
my natural inclination is, you know. So where you say, let's
share all of this, I want your views and everything, you perhaps
do a bit less of that than you would like to. You try and get
things a bit more sorted before you go to people to talk about
things. Because you might find that for some sort of bizarre
reason, something gets knocked back. I'm thinking about the
service standards stuff we have been doing. You might have a
couple of lay people who are in leading positions and, maybe
because of their own experience in their workplace, are not into
service standards and can knock that back -- which is perverse,
really. (Interviewee O)
I am generally supportive and proud of the fact that Unison is a
participative organisation. I don't always think that the
participation is at an appropriate level and I realise that what is
appropriate is your own opinion from your own viewpoint.
(Interviewee G)
By and large -- I think you used the word partnership before and
by and large there is a kind of broad partnership approach with
which everyone is reasonably happy. (Interviewee J)
One manager is positive on the notion of accountability of managers to
the lay structure:-
I think you are more accountable when you are challenged and I
think that it ensures that there is no imbalance in the power. It
can be testing, of course and very, very difficult at times and
there are unnecessary wranglings that go on but nevertheless
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