MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Conclusions
8.17. CONCLUSIONS
Trade Union Managers
Acceptance of managerial roles in UNISON is wholly shared and
reinforced from the top of the organisation. Systems and structures are
designed on the assumption that managers will be undertaking those
roles. There are some visions of a past in which trade union organisers
became managers without really realising it and in which some
struggled to accept the fact. There is evidence of managerial learning,
particularly since the merger. There are few doubts expressed about
whether others wholly share this role acceptance, except where there
is a suggestion that regional staff below the level of regional secretary
may not be in that position.
Systems
Resource Distribution Systems
UNISON is a substantially devolved union with powerful regional offices
and one would expect that financial systems would follow that
structure, which is the case. Managers have to justify bids against
plans formulated in accordance with the union’s objectives and
priorities. Budgets are then allocated and which managers control.
There are suggestions that virement within those budget heads is
permitted, though this may be at the discretion of the Finance Officer,
suggesting that systems retain some central control even if financial
management is more devolved. Senior managers emphasise their
responsibility for budgetary strategy but there is an indication that
financial policy is set by lay members, as one would expect. Lay
members also have a role in financial affairs in the regions, particularly
in the management of the lay activity budget, where different practices
are adopted in different areas – at least partly influenced by partner
union practice.
The original space allocation decisions were obviously taken some time
ago but the key decision, not to acquire a single head office, was taken
as a result of political influence on allocation systems. A decision to
bring managers together in a single office was not a success and
space was allocated for some years in two separate buildings and then,
in 1999, in a single office which had been NALGO ‘s head office.
There is no data on the processes involved in space allocation at
national level and managerial attitudes to it. This is because the
researcher was responsible for those activities and there could be no
assurance that answers given in response to questions of that nature
would have been reliable.
Systems relating to cognitive rules
Nine years on from the merger which created UNISON, it was striking
the extent to which cultural images of the old unions were still vividly
described by many UNISON managers, even to the extent of
discussing the way some lay members moved towards the concept
even where that had not been their previous experience. In terms of the
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