MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Cognitive rules and culture
dealing with performance and we don't have a set procedure for
that. (Interviewee J)
This may be a complex web, in that managerial perceptions of
constraints affecting their ability to take a harder line with staff is selffulfilling
in that they have not ensured that systems are in place to
enable action to be taken or standards to be set. There may also be an
issue in the lack of experience, or training, in management leading to
less strong management in other areas.
In some areas we have weak managers. We have people who
are, by being elected to a position, or being appointed to a
position, suddenly find themselves as managers. They don't
want to be. They have no intention of being or can't be. So we
don't train them to be managers of people……We don't put it in
the job adverts,, probably is one of our biggest failings. There
may be something implying that, you know, you have got to be
Che Guerava but what we don't say is, though, by the way you
will be managing 100 staff and experience in that would be
useful (Interviewee N)
This raises at least two issues. First, the impact which the system of
election has on the effectiveness of management of the union’s
infrastructure. The fact of election and its impact on acceptance of
managerial roles was referred to earlier. In the context of constraints on
management, CWU is particularly different amongst case study unions
in that regional representatives are, certainly in the Post Office,
seconded and paid for by the employer. It is difficult to talk, therefore,
about managerial relationships in the conventional sense. There is,
though, one example, of where election might be expected to have an
impact on how work is undertaken. :-
You take somebody who is a first-class branch secretary or
executive member and suddenly get them up heading a
Department, completely responsible for the computerised
records, the whole computerised base and whatever, and you
wonder why it doesn't run smoothly (Interviewee G)
The UCW’s last General Secretary mentioned the limitations of its
election system insofar as it involved, for example, trying ‘to turn
postmen into the Editor of our Journal’ – suggesting that the UCW was
obsessed with election whilst confirming that the system was not as
prevalent in the CWU.
Secondly the effect of lack of training for management which has been
a feature of the union’s life was raised above:-
I think the other problem for managers in trade unions is that in
some trade unions none of the officers in charge have had any
professional training whatsoever (Interviewee K)
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