MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Cognitive rules and culture
listen. But that is the benefit of being old and long in the tooth
and in the job for a long time. A lot of people are intimidated by
it, are anxious about it. And of course he makes you jump for an
issue but then tomorrow that isn't the issue. But everybody has
moved their priorities round and, of course, you create a culture
that you do what you need to do to keep the General Secretary
in a good mood. You don't do what you need to do to make the
organisation work. (Interviewee G)
This particular observation related to a previous General Secretary.
The current one, though admitting that he personally does have a
temper which he has to keep under control, related a particular
structural change which has cultural implications somewhat different
from the cultural manifestations described above:-
I think the biggest change has been the development of advisory
committees which we didn't have in the old UCW and there was
a certain degree of snobbishness when we merged. Everybody
thought the Gay and Lesbian Advisory Committee, the Women’s
Advisory Committee, the Ethnic Minority Advisory Committee
would be laughed out of court and we wouldn't get the
volunteers from the postal side because everyone believes
postmen are white, male and heterosexual. And of course what
happened initially, there wasn't a great deal of interest in the
committees but now they have taken off. So that has been
definitely something that has changed in terms of the union.
There is a long way to go. In terms of the union's culture, that's
a definite change from the old UCW
And the General Secretary also offered an explanation for one
manifestation of male cultural behaviours:-
We managed to get staff covering for senior clerks and also
what happened is that women are volunteering. It's all male
over there at the moment. So that's been a change. That would
never have taken place under the old UCW because people --
there is a certain degree of, I suppose you can call it an element
of sexism really, that the women members of the staff couldn't
do the job of the officers, although it is never expressed like that.
Nevertheless, the Review of Equality undertaken for the CWU in order
to examine its institutional character in response to the Stephen
Lawrence report does corroborate suggestions that the union’s culture
has not been comfortable for staff and, in particular, that at the time of
the report it was not yet homogenous:-
In the review of the activities of the CWU as a union we referred
to the "cultures of the previous unions" and we found that this
was a consistent theme in many of the discussions and
meetings held at all levels. However, we concluded that in terms
of equality it was not a key indicator in relation to the CWU
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