“An organisation gets the TU it deserves”. It was an experienced HR manager, a veteran of many industrial disputes, who said this to me as a young manager wanting to change things and feeling the local Trade Union rep was being obstructive. This was a time when union membership was high and the Unions were strong. She was right then and it would still hold true to day but for different reasons.
Her view was if you try and imposed changes, if you don’t think you need to explain the thinking behind decisions, if you work on a need to know bases and talk about managers right to manage it’s hardly surprising if employees distrust management and the relationship with the TU is confrontational. She was an advocate of partnership, mutual respect and cooperation.
There are those today who think just because TU membership has decline that there is no need to play nice. I moved from a large organisation where most employees were a member of a union to another large organisation that didn’t recognise TU’s instead claiming the staff associating made it unnecessary. You might think it would be easier to manage change in such an organisation .It wasn’t.
The staff association reps although locally elected had no credibility, considered to be in management’s pocket and dismissed as spokes persons for senior management. As such they were ineffective as a sounding board or a restraining hand on the more rash and impulsive actions of management. One consequence was the number of employees who took the organisation to an Industrial Tribunal for constructive dismissal. HR and legal were tasked with agreeing financial settlements to avoid hearings. At best it was a paternalistic management style but if challenged it didn’t take much for senior management to get macho.
When I moved to another organisation where approximately half the employees were a member of a union I was a much more experienced manager. I held regular face to face meeting with Union reps keeping them informed so that their members would see then as a source of information and not be reliant on their line manager for finding out what was going on. I also spoke directly to employees in their team and work places so that those not in the union did not feel out of the loop or without a voice.
The relationship was not just about the management of change but a partnership in tackling issues which mattered to both employees and the organisation such as absenteeism, bullying, poor and inconsistent management as well as identifying ways to make the organisation more inclusive and diverse. But most of all developing trust and mutual respect.
