MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Trade union managers
Dunlop’s (1990) suggestion that:-
trade union management is an oxymoron in itself (Interviewee
O)
was expressed and there were doubts expressed on the extent to
which the role was institutionally recognised:-
The problem is that I have to define my managerial role myself
because nobody will define it for me. It's very unclear as to
where the extent of my role is so it's not me resisting having
clarity or having managerial responsibility, it's that the system
doesn't give it to me. So I have to deal with it as best I can.
(Interviewee G)
I do not know if I am officially recognised as a manager. I take it
that since the General Treasurer has invited me to speak to you
this accords me some locus in the subject. (Interviewee L)
All this evidence relates to managerial activities carried out prior to the
election of the current General Secretary. His approach to
management is very direct and seems to reflect a qualitative change in
the way the union approaches it:-
Let's talk about my own perception. I am completely comfortable
with the idea of being a manager in the sense that that's what I
have to do. Now I have always been a little bit of an
organisational type person buff, you know, I am always one for
reading the latest management books and theories and stuff like
that and I don't see that as at all incompatible with being a trade
unionist, or being a socialist for that matter. I don't see any
conflict whatsoever because you are talking how do you manage
big organisations. It's a bit like saying, isn't it -- if you believe in
trade unions as class organisations, waging class war, as it were
-- the Soviet army shouldn't have a strategic battle plan but the
German army should have a strategic battle plan. If you believe
in organisation and being organised then clearly you need to be
a manager. I won't carry the metaphor too far but that's the fact.
So I don't think there's any problems in seeing it that way. None
whatsoever. Now I think some of the better officers see that but I
suppose partly because of politics, small and big p, they think it's
all a bit namby-pamby and this is just like the bosses
organisation blah blah blah. But my attitude would be it's just
like the bosses organisation -- so the Soviet army had rifles and
the Germans had rifles but the Soviet army shouldn't have rifles.
It's the same way of looking at it, you know. We’ve got an
organisation that employs people, people depend on this
organisation for their wages and therefore we have to have the
same skills in miniature that we have in any organisation.
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