unison and the people side of mergers

4 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 11 NO 2, 2001

Unison and the people side of merg e r s

Michael Dempsey , C r a n ® eld University

David McKevitt , University of Limerick

Human Resource Management Journal, Vol 11 No 2, 2001, pages 4-16

This article examines the merger of public service unions which resulted in the

c reation of Unison, the largest trade union in the UK. It examines the Unison merg e r

f rom the perspective of the strategic capability of union management(s) to in¯ u e n c e

the success or otherwise of the merger process. Models and frameworks arising fro m

re s e a rch into for-profit organisations are used, in particular those of Buono and

Bowditch (1989). Use is also made of the more recent work of Cartwright and Cooper

(1996). Both studies highlight the importance of the cultural aspects of the merg e r

p rocess. The article concludes that the chosen models illuminate the process and

demonstrate the importance of further re s e a rch to enable a better understanding of the

management of trade unions.

C o n t a c t : Michael Dempsey, Cranfield School of Management, Cranfield

U n i v e r s i t y, Cran® eld, Bedford MK43 0AL. Email: m.b.dempsey@cran® e l d . a c . u k

T his article describes the processes underlying the creation of Unison, the UK’s

l a rgest trade union. Our particular focus is on management’ s capacity to

i n ̄ uence the merger process, as Buono and Bowditch (1989: 194) observe that

`much of the failure and subsequent divestiture of merger and acquisition partners is

due to ineffective management of the underlying process’. A central concern is the ro l e

that organisational culture plays in facilitating or hindering the merger pro c e s s .

We are concerned here with description rather than prescription, a view that

reflects our agreement with Pettigrew’ s (1987: 5) observation that management

re s e a rch lacks an understanding of the importance of context and process in

determining strategic success. The context and process of the merg e r, the diff e re n t

c u l t u res of the participating unions, and managers’ capacity to in¯ uence the pro c e s s

a re the key issues.

Data came from three sources: first, the key anthropological study of culture

commissioned by the unions and reported here (Ouroussof, 1993a; 1993b); secondly,

f rom the participant observations of the ® rst author, who was part of the management

team leading the merger in one union; and, third l y, from the unpublished academic

re s e a rch of the ® rst author (Dempsey, 1993).

In strategic terms, the decision to form Unison was a deliberate one (Mintzberg and

Waters, 1985), yet the actual working through of the process had many emerg e n t

p roperties. In seeking to make the decision a successful one, it was important that the

operational life of the unions could be linked to the strategic vision of the merg e r. We

report on this key success factor in our re s e a rch (Pettigrew and Whipp, 1991).

F rom a theoretical perspective, the most significant issue is the application of

models from the literature on management of organisations in the for- p ro ® t sector to

the management of trade unions. There is virtually nothing in the literature on trade

unions relating to their management. The first significant text (Dunlop, 1990)

5HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 11 NO 2, 2001

Michael Dempsey and David McKevitt

i n t roduces the management of unions as an `oxymoron’ and undertakes a comparison

of the common elements among executives in four fields: private business,

government, academic institutions and organisations. Weil (1994) presents what is in

e ffect a strategic planning manual to assist unions in the US to `respond to external

changes creatively and proactively’ . A recent text (Hannigan, 1998) does examine ways

of improving the management of unions by the application of ideas from a small

number of key texts, noting that among the major problems with union mergers is the

inability to manage a larg e r, more complex organisation and possible intense cultural

conflict (1998: 15). But it goes no further. There is no other significant stream of

l i t e r a t u re of this character, particularly in the area of HRM.

The theoretical tools used in our analysis are founded on re s e a rch in other sectors.

Our proposition is that, with some adaptation, these tools, in particular those advanced

by Buono and Bowditch (1989), can illuminate the process of a trade union merger and

could, there f o re, be of use in the management of future mergers. The article also

highlights the need to gain greater understanding of the management of trade unions

in general.

TRADE UNION MERGERS

Unison is the result of the largest and most complex merger in British union history. It

b rought together Cohse, re p resenting around 200,000 health service staff; N a l g o,

re p resenting some 700,000 white-collar staff in a range of public services; and Nupe,

which re p resented about 600,000 blue-collar staff in the public services. Negotiations

between N a l g o and Nupe began in 1989, with Cohse joining them the following year.

During the years of negotiations, decisions about the nature and stru c t u re of the new

o rganisation had to be taken by the annual conferences of the three unions,

culminating in 1992 with the approval of a ® nal report which formed the basis of a

membership ballot. This resulted in a substantial majority in favour of merger of those

voting in all three organisations. `Vesting Day’ , when the new organisation took legal

form, was 1 July 1993.

T h e re were enormous cultural, organisational and democratic diff e rences between

the three organisations which were re ̄ ected in and accounted for the many years of

discussion and decision-making. These were exhibited in the behaviour of the many

d i ff e rent stakeholders in the process: members of all three unions, activists elected by

those members to hold voluntary union office and staff appointed to work for the

unions. All often had diff e rent expectations. Terry (1996), for example, reported two

key diff e rences: the extent to which full-time of® cials in¯ uenced union policy and the

relative amount of autonomy enjoyed by Nalgo branches.

The strategic thrust of the process was the creation of a single union for public

service staff, an aspiration of public service trade unionists for decades. As Terry (1996)

comments, `the fundamental assault on public services was prompting re n e w e d

thought about the nature and purposes of public service trade unionism.’ However,

d i ff e rences such as those reported here arose from values often deeply espoused by

members. Management had, there f o re, to take a deliberate strategy in seeking to

resolve these diff e re n c e s .

Union mergers in the UK have continued since Unison was formed. Another major

m e rger ± between the AEEU and MSF ± remains under discussion, and there is still

speculation about the creation of a massive general union from the merger of the GMB

and the TGWU. Buono and Bowditch (1989) recount much of the evidence that

m e rgers have a less than 50 per cent chance of being successful, and that many of the

p roblems that adversely affect a merger have been internally generated by dynamics in

the new entity, and suggest that the reality may be that many merger dif® culties are

simply self-in¯ icted (1989: 10). If these conclusions hold in the case of trade union

m e rgers, it follows that the way in which these projected mergers are managed may be

critical to their success.

AN INTEGRATED TYPOLOGY

Buono and Bowditch (1989: 61) suggest the use of an integrated typology of mergers to

raise a series of questions and concerns guiding merger decisions:

l How does the strategic nature of the combination relate to the degree of

friendliness/hostility involved?

l What does this entail for post-combination integration?

l A re managers pre p a red to deal with the increasing dif® culties raised by deeper

levels of integration?

l What does the speci® c nature of the merger mean in terms of stress, tension and

anxiety; organisational culture and culture con¯ ict; and necessary combination-

related intervention strategies and activities?

H u b b a rd (1999: 26) also found degree of integration to be an issue, and there is no

reason to suppose that these questions are any less relevant to union mergers than to

the merger of other organisations. There have been and, no doubt, will continue to be

d i ff e rent types of union mergers raising diff e rent issues for people managers within

those unions. The typology, however, re q u i res some adaptation to the context.

In terms of the strategic purpose of merg e r, it is dif® cult to conceive in the trade

union field of a vertical merger ± where two organisations have buyer or seller

relationships (Buono and Bowditch, 1989: 62) ± and there is no known example of a

® nancial takeover in the sense of one union taking over another and liquidating it. This

is not to say that ® nancial considerations are unimportant: in fact, ® nance has often

been a signi® cant factor in merger decisions. Contrary to Undy’s observation, (1999:

458), it was discussed widely in the Unison discussions.

While most union mergers are likely to be horizontal, involving org a n i s a t i o n s

re c ruiting in the same ® elds, service or sector extension has been a feature of some

m e rgers. Nalgo, for example, did not provide services in Northern Ireland. Despite

successful negotiations to effect a merg e r, the degree of friendliness or hostility is liable

to affect human relations. Undy et al (1981: 205) note that many of the small unions

joining the TGWU and ASTMS between 1968 and 1976 did so because of the dif® c u l t y

of maintaining services or ® nancial viability, and there are many instances of larg e

unions acquiring small ones with declining membership and low levels of assets per

capita ± hence the use of the concept of r̀escue’ . A tactical merger may occur where

partners are thrown together by changes in the industry or employer stru c t u re ± as

with the merger that created Uni® .

Levels of integration achieved in the merger process have, in practice, diff e re d

w i d e l y. On initial merg e r, the AEEU and the EETPU retained substantially separate

o rganisations, although high integration has subsequently been effected. Unison, by

contrast, intended from the outset to achieve full integration. There may also be parts

of a merged organisation that are integrated and parts that are not. For example,

Unison We l f a re, a free-standing re g i s t e red charity, had no equivalents in two of the

Unison and the people side of mergers


partners and did not, there f o re, face full integration, although re s e a rch suggested that,

p a r a d o x i c a l l y, morale in Unison We l f a re was, in 1993, no higher than in Unison itself

( D e m p s e y, 1993: 17).

Complex issues, there f o re, arise in attempts to identify diff e rent merger types. The

questions proposed by Buono and Bowditch were in general not asked by the partners

to the Unison merger until formal decisions to merge had been taken by the members,

despite the careful pre-planning that characterised the process. The typology, however,

p rovides an important context to enable the characteristics of the Unison merger to be

better understood as the diff e rent stages in the merger are studied.

S TAGES IN THE UNISON MERGER

Buono and Bowditch (1989: 89) propose a seven-stage framework describing the

p rocess of merger from planning to integration. We now apply that framework, set

out in Figure 1 and adapted to fit the context, to the Unison merg e r. While in an

o rganisation like a union, with a multiplicity of stakeholders, the effects of merger are

likely to be felt among all of them (and we make re f e rence to this, especially when

discussing organisational culture), we are primarily concerned with management

issues and consequently with the effects on managers and staff. In the discussion that

follows, we comment on the strategies for managing the process using the data in the

Unison case.

FIGURE 1

Stage C h a r a c t e r i s t i c s

Stage 1 Pre-merger D e g ree of uncertainty affecting the union about its

f u t u re as the world changes may vary, but

o rganisations are relatively stable and members

a re relatively satis® ed with the status quo.

Stage 2 Merger planning D e g ree of uncertainty increases, causing

discussion concerning merg e r. Fears that unless

the union grows, it may fail. The union is still

relatively stable and discussion is con® ned

to top level.

Stage 3 Announced merger D e g ree of uncertainty for the union’s people

continues to increase as the decision is announced.

The union is still relatively stable and, while

members have mixed emotions concerning the

m e rg e r, expectations are raised.

Stage 4 Initial merger process O rganisational instability increases and is

characterised by uncertainty about structural and

some cultural issues and roles. Although members

a re generally co-operative at the beginning,

goodwill quickly disappears.

Stage 5 Formal legal merger O rganisational instability increases again as people

have to come and work together. More rigid

unions take on some more ¯ uid characteristics for

a period. Con¯ ict between stakeholders incre a s e s .



Stage 6 Merger aftermath Lack of co-operation and `us/them’ mentality

exists, and unachieved expectations lead to mutual

hostilities. Instability decreases, but cultural

and role ambiguity remains high. Dissenters

leave the org a n i s a t i o n .

Stage 7 Psychological merger O rganisational stability recurs as ambiguities

a re clari® ed. Expectations are revised; renewed

co-operation and tolerance begin. Ti m e -

consuming process.

S o u rce: adapted from Buono and Bowditch (1989: 89)

1. Pre - m e rg e r

Undy et al (1981: 170) indicate that most of the mergers they studied had not re c e i v e d

their primary stimulus from the mass membership; rather, they were faced with a

series of faits accomplis arising out of the considerable discretion enjoyed by their

national leaders. This was not the case in the Unison merg e r, which arose fro m

c o n f e rence decisions in all three unions.

T h e re was something of a paradox in the Unison negotiations, at least in Nalgo.

On the one hand, it was well known that negotiation was going on. The thre e

unions had set up committees and working parties to consider all aspects of the

p roject. Union staff were informed periodically in a non-strategic way. Some were

involved in joint working parties. However, on the other hand, the observation of

one joint author was that many Nalgo headquarters staff simply did not want to

k n o w, and there was criticism for over-briefing on the issue in team briefing

sessions. It seems likely that this was a consequence of wish-fulfilment; staff in an

o rganisation in which change was largely unwelcome just hoped the whole thing

would go away.

2. Merger planning

In a union context, this stage covers the often lengthy period when negotiations take

place, leading to decisions on whether the merger is to be effected by transfer of

engagements (requiring balloting only by members of the `transfero r’ union) or by

amalgamation (requiring a ballot of all members), and on the form of the legal

documentation and ballot paper. Decisions by activists were involved throughout the

p rocess; in the Unison merg e r, conference decisions were made in four successive years

(1989 to 1992) by two of the partner unions, with an additional special conference held

by Nalgo.

Buono and Bowditch (1989: 92) believe that early combination planning should

focus on:

l determining the goals of the combination;

l selecting an appropriate merger strategy;

l determining appropriate merger criteria; and

l devising a way to gain employee support and commitment to make the

transition work.

Cartwright and Cooper (1996: 115) propose a checklist to improve management of

the pre-combination stage. This involves knowing your own culture; re s e a rching that

of the prospective partner; and arriving on day one with an agenda of people issues for

discussion to test implicit or pre-formed ideas of culture. The objective is to be in a



position to reconsider the whole idea if it appears that a successful marriage is not

likely to re s u l t .

It is unlikely that any union merger processes have ever come close to these

p rescriptions. Unison did undertake a cultural survey of the three partner unions

( O u roussof, 1993a; 1993b ± discussed below) but this was not obtained until after the

decision to merge had been taken. Very few people decisions were made prior to then,

and subsequent delay in taking them undoubtedly exacerbated the org a n i s a t i o n a l

s t ress. The delay, it might be commented, was to some extent involuntary. The

intention had been to have staffing stru c t u res in place before Vesting Day, and

consultants were engaged for that purpose. The consultants, however, defaulted and at

least six months were lost as a consequence.

3. Announced merg e r

Buono and Bowditch’s review of the re s e a rch (1989: 98) suggests that the creation of

formal communication channels as early as possible may reduce the anxiety otherwise

fuelled by rumours, grapevine and outside news reports. They say that the

announcement should always be arranged so that staff hear it ® rst from within the

o rganisation; informing them even one hour before a public announcement can lessen

the shock and increase trust in future internal communications. Hubbard (1999: 97)

calls communication `the binding force of acquisitions’, and adapts a model of the

communication process, involving communication, content, channel and timing.

Cartwright and Cooper (1996: 118) recall that they frequently encountered the

`flashbulb memory’ phenomenon, in which employees had total recall of the

c i rcumstances in which they were told what to them was the shocking news that their

o rganisations were going to merge; the announcement symbolised the death of their

o rganisation. It is, they say, a ® rst stage in setting the scene for the renegotiation of the

psychological contract between the individual and the organisation.

The announcement of a union merger is a highly political event, usually involving a

p ress conference giving the ballot result. Employees are normally told by letter (`Dear

Colleague’), as they were in Unison. There may be an assumption that they have

a l ready bought into the principle, so the letter may be formulated in terms of thanking

them for having contributed to the success of the ballot.

While it may be true that many people will be committed to the achievement of

m e rg e r, it is certainly not axiomatic that they all are. There are diff e rent stakeholders

to consider. First, some members and activists will inevitably have voted against

m e rg e r. Secondly, it is very likely that a majority of non-organising staff will not have

been directly involved in the negot iations or campaigning. Their joy at the

announcement cannot be assumed, and there are bound to be concerns for the future

among all staff.

Cartwright and Cooper (1996: 118) point out that shocking information is better

communicated face to face rather than by notices and letters. This is echoed by Hunt

and Downing (1990), who say that face-to-face communication should be preferred

over the use of letters, memos or videos. While letters or bulletins are probably the

only means of telling members, in the case of staff this means devising ways in which

managers can brief them. It is certain that the staff will have questions, some of

which they may be wary of asking for fear of seeming disloyal. It is equally certain

that there will not be answers to many of them. There is a limit to the amount of

resources that can be put in the way of planning the new organisation in cases where

it may be uncertain how the members will speak. But the importance of basic

measures of staff protection, and a clear idea not just of the terms of any severances



which may be implemented but of the circumstances in which they will be allowed,

cannot be underestimated.

Unison’s case supports arguments for a planned communications strategy. Not all

s t a ff were fully on board: Thorpe (1991: 67) found that 35.7 per cent of staff in his

survey in the North-East were unsure of what bene® ts would accrue from the merg e r.

And, despite the existence of staff protection measures, uncertainty surro u n d i n g

severance policy was unsettling.

Some of the astonishing rumours which circulated support the view that employees

hear bad news before good. Staff were perfectly pre p a red to believe that the senior

management team were all to be given limousines, and serious worry was caused by a

counterfeit management report circulated which suggested that all those with fewer

than two years’ service would have their contracts terminated.

Management acted on several fronts to assist and facilitate the announcement

p rocess. There was a strategic attitude to written communication. A s t a ff newsletter was

started, edited by a journalist, which conveyed hard news, features and contained a

letters page in which staff could ask anonymous questions which were guaranteed a

response from a member of the senior management team. Reactive communications

followed particular events. Managers individually briefed staff when they thought it

a p p ropriate as well as, in one or two cases, in a strategic, co-ordinated way. However,

lack of staff re s o u rces led to communication becoming piecemeal, and it was not possible

to develop the re q u i red strategic communication policy. Certainly, Unison’s experience

supports the importance of communicating strategically, openly and regularly with all

the relevant stakeholders. Management’ s capacity to influence the context of the

announcement decision was, there f o re, debilitated due to a lack of re s o u rc e s .

4. Initial merg e r

Buono and Bowditch (1989: 96) characterise this period as being one of incre a s i n g

i n s t a b i l i t y, in which goodwill can quickly dissipate as cultural and role uncertainty

i n c reases. People become aware of possible cultural con¯ ict, and go through a pro c e s s

of cultural learning which heightens their awareness of their own culture and

highlights the diff e rences between the organisations. Ty p i c a l l y, organisations appoint

joint committees to resolve diff e rences and negotiate to establish policies and

p ro c e d u res. Rare l y, they say, are there explicit attempts to deal with the cultural issues

that underlie structural concerns. Yet winning hearts and minds is an immediate

necessity (Hunt and Downing, 1990).

In union mergers, only after the ballot is it likely that managerial and HR issues

will be addressed in detail. This can lead, as it did in Unison’ s case, to a feeling among

the staff that their concerns were a lot lower down the agenda than many other

s t ructural issues.

Unison, however, did undertake activities which, in a union merger context, were at

the time innovative and re ̄ ected good practice. First, counselling was available for staff

t h rough an Employee Assistance Programme. The take-up of this service was very high;

analysed by re f e rence to employee population, access for counselling increased by 81

per cent between 1993 and 1994, and by a further 25 per cent between 1994 and 1995.

S e c o n d l y, Unison, which had established a `Management of change taskforce’ to try

to develop an organisation development approach to change (eventually re i n f o rced by

the establishment of an OD unit in the management stru c t u re), began a programme of

management of change workshops throughout the country. These followed what

Buono and Bowditch (1989: 115) say is a typical approach, focusing on how to cope

with the stress and anxiety created by mergers by the use of a bereavement model of



reaction to change. Ty p i c a l l y, people realised that it was not disloyal or re p rehensible to

feel bad.

T h i rd l y, an explicit attempt was made to use management development as a tool in

facilitating the better management of the process. Senior managers attended a

compulsory programme at Cran® eld School of Management which had at its core the

i d e n t i ® cation of the dominant cultural paradigms of the partner organisations thro u g h

analysing their `cultural webs’ (Johnson, 1988: 84), followed by an assessment of what

the future cultural web of Unison would look like. In 1995, a second programme was

run which, inter alia, revisited the cultural web and assessed how far it was in place,

and a third was held in 1998. The senior management team attended facilitated

strategy workshops to develop its own ability to manage the merger. Other unions

have since undertaken similar exercises. Further re s e a rch is needed to establish the

extent to which these improved the morale and performance of staff, dealt to any

extent with their concerns and thus improved the outcomes of the merg e r.

We can see that management pursued a deliberate strategy in the initial combination

phase and also sought, through development programmes, to link the new operational

context of Unison with the strategic purpose underlying the merger pro c e s s .

5. Formal legal merg e r

At this point, uncertainties and tensions are likely to arise which can, Buono and

Bowditch (1989: 98) assert, create not only personal stress but also organisational stre s s .

They devote a substantial proportion of their study to cultural issues; culture, they say,

tends to be unique to a particular organisation, and affects practically every aspect of

o rganisational life. During a merg e r, the cultural collisions and resultant shock can

d i s rupt the entire workings of the new organisation (1989: 142-143).

Buono and Bowditch go on to say that t̀o understand the full implications that

c u l t u re poses, it is important to be able to assess the degree of cultural similarity

between’ the merging organisations (1989: 149). Similarity or diff e rence may not,

however, be the only issue. Cartwright and Cooper (1996: 63) adopt a simple cultural

typology of power, role, task/achievement and person/support cultures. These are

placed on a continuum in which a power culture is at the limit of placing high

individual constraints on employees, and a person/support culture is at the limit of

imposing little or no individual constraints. They then argue that it is not so much

the distance between the parties that is important, but the direction in which the

other culture has to move, `i e whether members of organisations experience the

culture which they are expected to adopt as imposing more or less constraint on them

as individuals’ .

In terms of this typology, it is easy to identify Nalgo as a role culture. It is pro b a b l y

not too dif® cult to identify Nupe as a power culture. It is much more dif® cult to pin

down Cohse. There is no doubt that senior managers of Cohse sought to develop an

o rganisation which was task/achievement-centred. Ouro u s s o f ’s (1993) findings

suggested that this objective had not permeated throughout the organisation.

Unison did endeavour to assess cultural similarity, commissioning a cultural study

of the three old unions. Two reports were pre p a red: an interim one to the senior

management team (Ouroussof, 1993a) and a final one, following interviews with

activists, at about the time of formal merger (Ouroussof, 1993b). The study was

undertaken over ® ve months and involved interviews with hundreds of stakeholders.

Its purpose was t̀o draw out and make explicit the diff e rences in values and beliefs

between the three union cultures. In the case of a merg e r, it is vital to understand the

c u l t u res of the organisations concerned because of the tendency for diff e rences in



fundamental values to impede mutual understanding and create unnecessary obstacles

to integration.’ Ouroussof, 1993b: 1)

D i ff e rences in values and beliefs were found. In Nalgo there was said to be

institutional inertia, in which discussion of problems was valued as an end in itself

( O u roussof, 1993a: 4). This led to a failure to develop a strong management ethos, in

that the committee system was used as an excuse to duck and ignore problems. In

Nupe it was the ability to make a fast and, what was believed to be, effective decision

that was valued for its own sake, although the principles on which those decisions

w e re based were often obscure. The consequence was that people were often left

feeling resentful or manipulated. In Cohse, the survey found that great value was

placed on informality but without any clear notion of accountability (1993a: 5).

Informal networking had sometimes led those who had not been a part of the network

to feel as though they had been left to invent the union for themselves.

F u r t h e r m o re, most people within the three unions had stereotypical and critical views

of the others. Nalgo full-time of® cers were believed to be `desk-bound’ because they

w e re allegedly kept out of branches by the politically motivated cliques of activists who

w e re running them (Ouroussof, 1993b: 4); those activists were assumed to be motivated

by travel and ® rst-class hotels. Nupe full-time of® cers were believed to be engaged in

p reventing activists from participating in their own union because they knew best and

because they saw activists as a threat to their own personal interests (Ouroussof, 1993b:

5). Cohse of® cers were believed to lack a clear understanding of the wider political

dimensions of trade unionism, to be `gifted amateurs’ (Ouroussof, 1993b: 5).

These are stark characterisat ions, and the fact that they surfaced and were

c o n f ronted, most notably during management training events, could be said to have

j u s t i ® ed the process. Ouroussof drew two particular conclusions. The ® rst was that if

any one tradition was arbitrarily imposed on the new organisation, it would be likely

to lead to a depletion in membership (Ouroussof, 1993b: 10). The second was that the

need for a policy of good management to be adopted was `not for the sake of the

people employed in Unison and for the sake of the members but also for the sake of

trade unionism’ (Ouroussof, 1993a: 8).

Buono and Bowditch say that the first step in dealing with the influence and

potential constraints of culture is to acknowledge their presence, then to study and

understand cultural characteristics (1989: 163). These data show that Unison did this.

The next task, on formal combination, is to manage the process of building a new

c u l t u re. Managers, they say, should also use cultural communications, both explicit ±

by direct means ± and implicit ± by means of demonstrations of cultural changes, e g a n

a l t e red dress code or changed of® ce layout or size (in fact, messages related to of® c e

accommodation location, style and layout are very powerful). Those who do not accept

the new culture should be given an opportunity to leave, recognising that, as Buono

and Bowditch point out (1989: 171), a high degree of turnover, even if voluntary, can

have negative re p e rcussions. Cartwright and Cooper (1996: 157) add that the cultural

combination process should be monitored, perhaps by interviews and questionnaire s .

These issues were confronted by Unison. It was a prime objective that no single

o rganisation would be the dominant partner, but there were indications that staff and

managers from both Nalgo and Nupe thought that the other was the dominant partner.

In assessing whether the culture moved in the direction of autonomy, it appears that

managers from Nalgo, used to a role culture, tended to feel less constrained, and those

f rom Nupe, as a power culture, felt more constrained.

In terms of stru c t u res, explicit attempts were made to make sure that Unison did not

resemble any of the three partners. New names for institutions were devised; re d u c e d



committee systems were planned; project team-working and matrix management were

developed to create a task orientation; and to span boundaries and staff communication

was, at least in theory, given a high priority. Integration of diff e rent stakeholder gro u p s

was monitored, and was the subject of a study and report on `integration and

participation’. The objective was to prevent traditionally articulate white-collar activists,

usually white and male, from dominating union stru c t u res and imposing their own

cultural certainties, while alienating other important groups. The tendency, as Te r r y

(1996) points out, is for the Nalgo tradition to become the dominant one in most

m e rged branches. It will be recalled that Ouroussof (1993) identi® ed such a dominance

as having the capacity to reduce membership. There is certainly a fear that perc e p t i o n s

of white-collar domination have reduced activist participation.

Unions re p resenting staff in the three old organisations remained largely unmerg e d

for some time, and this helped to perpetuate and re i n f o rce old cultures. While, as Buono

and Bowditch point out (1989: 176), old networks can be seen as calls for help in stre s s f u l

times `when existing support systems have broken down and people are attempting to

regain some control over their lives’, there is a danger that they may be implicitly waiting

for the right time for the old culture to reassert itself. Management styles re ̄ e c t i n g

managers’ cultural backgrounds have sometimes tended to con® rm such suspicions.

While there was and continues to be a deliberate strategy of cultural management,

in 1994 there was a serious ® nancial crisis as income levels stabilised at a lower level

than predicted. In three months a voluntary severance exercise led to the departure of

over 25 per cent of the staff, causing much uncertainty and stress. `Survivor syndro m e ’

seriously affected cultural integration as motivation and commitment fell, as Buono

and Bowditch predicted (1989: 171). There is little doubt that the uncertainty created by

this process had signi® cant implications for the development of a new org a n i s a t i o n

with a new culture.

It is clear, though, that the Unison data and Ouro u s s o f’s cultural appraisal support

Buono and Bowditch’s view of the crucial role of organisational culture in the merg e r

p rocess. While management sought proactively to facilitate a new, combined

o rganisational context that would not re ̄ ect any one union culture, the persistence of

s t rong subcultures showed the extent of the challenge to influence a common

o rganisational culture .

6. Merger afterm a t h

Buono and Bowditch (1989: 99) say that, as a result of the continuing instability, there is

a danger at this stage of `merger standstill’ or `postmerger drift’. This process can take

years to resolve, and is typically manifest in decreased productivity and operating

e ffectiveness. The severity and intensity of the drift, they say, will depend on the nature

of the combination and the quality of its management. It is suggested that, even in a

p roperly managed merg e r, it can take 18 months before productivity returns to pre -

m e rger levels.

Voluntary severance in Unison has continued, unsettling staff who remain. More

than anything else, this has contributed to drift and uncertainty. Through it all, major

change has continued. A strategic review of services was followed by functional

reviews of every service and region, and the adoption in 1998 of a new management

s t ru c t u re with a principal aim of increasing managerial accountability. A rg u a b l y,

management of the people implications of this process has not learned adequately fro m

the lessons of the merger process, and communication has again been open to criticism.

The old Nupe head office was closed in 1999 and, in a decision bearing symbolic

implications, staff relocated in the old Nalgo of® ce. A new general secre t a r y, formerly



f rom Nalgo, assumed of® ce in 2001. More than seven years after merg e r, the process of

cultural integration continues to be managed.

7. Psychological merg e r

Buono and Bowditch (1989: 101) suggest that this level of `true’ integration may not be

reached until there is a new `enemy’ which serves as a focal point for hostility and

t h reat. Since Unison was intended as a focal point for public service trade unionism,

and since it retains the `persuasive vision’ without which Hunt and Downing (1990)

believe psychological withdrawal can occur, perhaps this is something which should

give it comfort as it continues to manage its merger process.

In managing union mergers, an important issue may be the understanding of

manifestations of grief and loss, not as demonstrations of disloyalty or sel® shness but

as the consequence of an explicable process. Loyalty is often a litmus test of one’s

acceptability within a union organisation. Recognition of human diversity in

individual reactions to stressful and life-changing experiences can only assist in the

achievement of psychological combination.

C O N C L U S I O N S

This article has made use of a number of frameworks, arising from re s e a rch into

m e rgers of for- p rofit organisations, to examine aspects of the management of the

Unison merg e r. We suggested at the outset that these were capable of illuminating the

p rocess, and we believe that we have demonstra ted this. This is of use both in

examining the management of mergers in diff e rent sectors and also in the development

of frameworks to study the management of trade unions themselves.

T h e re are three areas which should be mentioned in conclusion:

1. It is possible to identify the strategic purpose of the merger as friendly, horizontal

and high integration. Buono and Bowditch predict that such mergers will involve

g reater difficulties in achieving true integration, causing more disruption than

anticipated (1989: 85). In one of their case studies, the authors found loss of

o rganisational pride, employee detachment, fractionalisation, loss of job security and

feelings of helplessness (1989: 86). We have reported some of these features existing in

the Unison merg e r. Despite a signi® cant amount of pre-planning, many of these were

unanticipated consequences. If merger proceeds between, for example, two larg e

general unions such as the GMB and the TGWU, it would not seem unreasonable for

planning to proceed on the basis that such consequences should be anticipated.

2. Study of the Unison merger process by stages has demonstrated both that those

stages were recognisable and that many of the predicted consequences occurred. The

p rocess was managed with some care once the decision to merge had been taken.

B e f o re that, however, there was little attention to the people management issues which

w e re likely to confront the partners. In this, Unison was probably little diff e rent to

many other organisations. In none of the three case studies considered by Buono and

Bowditch was much pre-combination HR work undertaken; in one, as in Unison, the

c o re of the approach was a `no job loss’ policy. Both Buono and Bowditch and

Cartwright and Cooper suggest that lack of attention to HR issues at these times is

likely to make subsequent management of the process more problematic.

In a democratic organisation, where a ballot has to be held, pre-combination work

like this could be seen as pre-empting the democratic decision. On the other hand,

unions are not constrained by regulatory pre s s u res not to disclose market-sensitive



information prior to a merger decision, so, arg u a b l y, management has a freer hand to

attend to staff traumas and anxieties which, in the light of our data, are likely to be a

f e a t u re of the process. People may be committed to the cause, but trauma and anxiety

a re likely to affect them just the same.

3. The data in this article shows that successful management of the merger process has

elements of both deliberateness and emergence. The Unison case is an example of

realised strategy: the merger did take place, yet it also demonstrates, as predicted, the

vital role that organisational culture plays in the merger process. The innovative

cultural study, and the attention given by management to its ® ndings, may have been

of great value in the post-combination periods, but the development of a new cultural

paradigm has unsurprisingly been a long-term process. Seven years into the merg e r,

t h e re are still recognisable artefacts of the old cultures, for example management styles,

at least one largely unmerged staff union, and the use of one of the three old head of® c e

buildings as the head of® ce of Unison. Buono and Bowditch (1989: 192) say that culture

change during a merger `must be recognised as a time-consuming, evolutionary

p rocess that often entails political manoeuvring, anxiety-provoking situations, con¯ i c t s

and tensions and the need for learning, adjustment and ¯ e x i b i l i t y.’ Our work suggests

that this may be no less true in union mergers.

If the literature can provide insights into the process of trade union mergers, it may

assist in other areas ± for example, in the public sector, in statutory mergers of local

authorities and future projected changes in public service stru c t u res. One value of the

Unison case is that it shows how a strategic perspective can be adopted by

management with the objective of attending to the interests of diff e rent stakeholders in

the merger process.

Management of a merger is a challenging task for any manager. Trade unions are

becoming larger as the sector consolidates into fewer, merged organisations. This

article demonstrates that the management of trade unions can no longer remain the

p rovince of gifted amateurs, however thoughtful and well-directed. This urg e n t l y

needs to be re ̄ ected in the literature and further re s e a rch directed to this area, where it

would be of help not only in understanding the dynamics of these large, signi® c a n t

o rganisations but also in understanding the effect of widely diff e rent contexts on both

strategy and people.

GLOSSARY

A E E U Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union

A S T M S Association of Scienti® c, Technical and Managerial Staff

C o h s e Confederation of Health Service Executives

E E T P U Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union

G M B General Municipal and Boilermakers’ Union

M S F Manufacturing, Science, Finance

N a l g o National and Local Government Of® cers’ A s s o c i a t i o n

N u p e National Union of Public Employees

T G W U Transport and General Workers’ Union

U n i ® Union for ® nance staff





B I B L I O G R A P H Y

Buono, A. F. and Bowditch, J. L. (1989). The Human Side of Mergers and Acquisitions, San

Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Cartwright, S. and Cooper, C. (1996). Managing Mergers, Acquisitions and Strategic

A l l i a n c e s, London: Butterworth-Heinemann.

D e m p s e y, M. B. (1993). Unison Service Provision at a Time of Major Change, Unpublished

M B A dissertation, Open University.

Dunlop, J. T. (1990). The Management of Labor Unions, Lexington, Mass: Lexington Books.

Hannigan, T. A. (1998). Managing To m o r ro w ’s High Performance Unions, New Yo r k :

Q u o rum Books.

H u b b a rd, N. (1999). Acquisition: Strategy and Implementation, Basingstoke: Macmillan.

Hunt, J. and Downing, S. (1990). `Mergers, acquisitions and HRM’. International Journal

of Human Resource Management, 1: 2, 195-209.

Johnson, G. (1988). ̀ Rethinking incrementalism’. Strategic Management Journal, 9, 75-91.

M i n t z b e rg, H. and Waters, J. (1985). `Of strategies, deliberate and emergent’. S t r a t e g i c

Management Journal, 6, 257-272.

O u roussof, A. (1993a). Unpublished presentation to Unison senior management team,

J a n u a r y.

O u roussof, A. (1993b). ̀ Unison; building a new culture’. Unpublished report, May.

P e t t i g re w, A. (ed.) (1987). The Management of Strategic Change, Oxford: Blackwell.

P e t t i g re w, A. and Whipp, R. (1991). Managing Change for Competitive Success, Oxford :

B l a c k w e l l .

Te r r y, M. (1996). `Negotiating the government of Unison’. British Journal of Industrial

R e l a t i o n s, 34: 1, 87-11 0 .

Thorpe, M. (1991). ̀ Trade union merg e r’ . Unpublished MA d i s s e r t a t i o n .

U n d y, R. (1999). ̀ Negotiating amalgamations: territorial and political consolidation and

administrative reform in public sector service unions in the UK’. British Journal of

Industrial Relations, 37: 3, 445-462.

Undy R., Ellis, V., McCarthy, W. E. J. and Halmos, S. A. M. (1981). Change in Tr a d e

U n i o n s, London: Hutchinson.

Weil, D. (1994). Turning the Tide; Strategic Planning for Labor Unions, New Yo r k :

Lexington Books.

unison and the people side of mergers

Documents