Abstract:
In 1985, the researcher took up employment in what he regarded as a
senior management position as Assistant General Secretary
(Administration) of NALGO, the public service union. The objective was
to gain management experience alongside continuing management
education. Whilst there were others seeking to manage to the best of
their ability, the idea was not universally accepted. However, the union,
by the end of the decade, had embarked on management development
courses for senior managers and by the time it merged and became
part of UNISON, managerial activities were visible in many areas. It
was not, however, clear the extent to which – if at all – such
phenomena were observable in other trade unions. The literature did
not help in this respect. Research to establish whether trade union
managers existed and, if so, what their roles were appeared to offer the
prospect of examining a new area of trade union life.
This research is based on interviews with 56 senior trade union staff in
four trade unions formed by merger – CWU, PCS, UNiFI and UNISON.
Only one of those individuals professed not to accept a managerial role
and that person accepted that he had a responsibility to ensure that the
union was managed.
Original findings include the following:-
• There is a category of employee in trade unions known as a
‘trade union manager’, a role not previously identified by
empirical research and discussed in the literature.
• Trade union management develops depending on the level of
institutional support. In the case study unions, there were links
between this and the stage of merger that the unions had
reached. Prior to institutional acceptance, there are managers
who do their best to manage, operating in something of a
cocoon.
• Trade union managers espouse trade union principles which
include the notion of fairness, imputing a concern for the way
people are treated, including the staff for whom they are
responsible.
• Management remains in many ways a problematic concept in
trade unions, leading often to its undervaluation. Trade union
managers may perceive that it involves the exercise of power of
the powerless, judgment on the weak. Trade union managers
may as a result be ambivalent at being judgmental and,
consequently, at managing conduct or performance.
• Trade union managers manage stakeholders in polyarchal
organisations but boundaries with lay activists are unclear; they
engage in contests to define those boundaries and to manage
what they regard as their own responsibilities.
• Boundaries may include those relating to conflictual relations,
constitutional boundaries, moveable boundaries, staff
boundaries and policy/political boundaries.
