MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Trade union managers
Edith McCaulay, Legal Officer (ex NCU)
John McCarrick, Print Manager (ex NCU)
David Norman, General Treasurer (ex NCU)
Rita Read, Facilities Manager (ex UCW)
Karen Turley, Personnel Officer (ex NCU)
Spike Wood, Chair of re-location sub-committee (ex CPSA/NCU)
Tony Young, former General Secretary NCU
After discussing the attitude of trade managers to their roles, this
chapter will continue by looking at trade union management using the
structure of Hales (1999), which examines systems, modalities,
managerial activities and management style.
Trade Union Managers
5.7. Only one interviewee in the CWU did not accept that they had a
management role. This was someone who had actually left the union
and whose experience, therefore, was less current than others. But his
rejection of the role was not founded on any ideological impediment:-
I should have done and every so often, you know, I would get
people…….saying, you know, you've got to pay more attention
to these things. And I should have done and I think that was a
fault. We were fighting against privatisation of the Post Office in
1992 to 1994 and then we were straight into a dispute,
practically, with Royal Mail so I would use that as an excuse. But
it is an excuse. I should have perhaps concentrated more. I
didn't see myself as a manager and I think lots of trade union
leaders, although they are in essence the Chief Executive of an
organisation employing, in our case, over 200 people, I don't
think we see ourselves that way as much as we should. So I
don't think I did that particularly well.. (Interviewee A)
There was speculation about the extent to which the industrial officers
regarded themselves as managers. Some evidence suggests the old
practices whereby anything people-orientated was passed to the
Personnel Department had been followed in the past:-
Here was a group of people, as many as 20, who were being
managed and technically that was the manager but the manager
says 'well I don't have to deal with it, that's not my responsibility,
it's a matter for the administration.' (Interviewee M)
Furthermore, recognition of the fact of management responsibility did
not necessarily mean that management tasks were personally
undertaken:-
As far as the building is concerned, I have responsibility as the
chief executive but what I do is that I delegate that authority to
the general treasurer in his capacity as the central management
figure in the headquarters joint Council (Interviewee D)
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