HOW UCATT REVISED ITS RULES: AN ANATOMY OF ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE*
| Published date | 01 March 1979 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1979.tb00623.x |
| Date | 01 March 1979 |
| Author | Joe England |
HOW UCATT REVISED ITS RULES:
AN ANATOMY
OF
ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE*
JOE
EN GLAND^
INTRODUCTION
We have recently been reminded by Frank Bealey' that the study
of
trade union
government has usually been approached by three avenues. First, through analysis of
their formal constitutions and representative institutions;* secondly, by an examination
of
actual political behaviour within particular unions;3 and thirdly by a combination
of
the first two approaches. The third approach is a natural one to adopt, wrote Bealey,
because
The institutional framework of any association provides a framework within which internal
forces cooperate andor contend and policies are formulated and implemented. Policy-makers
and politicians need
to
be aware
of
procedural rules and constitutional forms. Political systems
can thus only be understood properly through the study of the interplay between internal power
relationships and institutional arrangements.'
While this is sensible it does appear
to
imply that the 'institutional arrangements' are
neutral or God-given, whereas in fact they are
themselves
the outcome of co-operation
or
contention between political forces internal to the organisation.
It is this latter point which this article will illustrate through a review
of
the changes,
actual and proposed, in the organisational structure
of
the Union
of
Construction,
Allied Trades and Technicians (UCATT) over the years 1970-6, based mainly upon
observation and interviews with members
of
the Union. Its main focus
is
the process
of
rules revision which took place in 1975 and resulted in the rules which have been in
operation since
1
July 1976. At an early stage in the rules revision process
I
was invited
by the Executive Council
of
UCATT to submit a paper
on
the Union's structure and,
as
a result, was allowed to observe the meetings
of
the central rules revision bodies within
the Union.
It
should be stressed that once the paper was submitted
I
took
no
further part
in the discussions and remained simply as an observer.
Although the political nature of organisational change in trade unions has always
been explicit-through the tradition
of
changing rules and structures by votes-yet it
remains an underdeveloped area
of
study. Academic attention has tended to concen-
trate, with fruitful results, upon the effect
of
changes in capital concentration, technol-
ogy, and markets upon union structures and government5 while it has been left largely to
the press and the general public
to
perceive the significant impact which individual
leaders have had upon organisations. Bryn Roberts in NUPE, Ernest Bevin and Jack
Jones in the T.G.W.U., and Leslie Cannon in the E.T.U. each provide examples
of
the
decisive effect which a distinctive leadership style and vision can have.
It
may be
objected that these men operated within structures or circumstances which allowed
particularly free rein to their reforming intentions and, consequently, they cannot be
taken as typical
of
the influence which strongly motivated individuals may have upon
organisational structure. While this is
SO,^
it
should not prevent us from recognising that
even within tighter structural constraints individuals, particularly those in leadership
positions, will seek to initiate,
or
resist, changes in the structure.
In
the study
of
organisational behaviour generally there has been a recent emphasis upon the political
*
This paper would not have been possible without the generous co-operation of the officers and
t
Research Fellow, S.S.R.C. Industrial Relations Research Unit, University
of
Wanvick.
members
of
the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians.
1
2
BRITISH
JOURNAL
OF
INDUSTRIAL
RELATIONS
processes involved in designing organisational structures.' The key factor, for an
influential school
of
thought, in the interplay between structures and personality is the
extent to which individuals can mobilise resources to pursue their own particular
vision
of
the organisation's present and future. Thus Pettigrew has claimed:
By their ability to exert power over others, individuals can change
or
maintain structures as well
as the norms and expectations upon which these structures rest. An individual's behaviour is
therefore governed not only by the structure
of
the situation in which he participates but
also
by
his ability
to
shape and mould that structure
to
suit his own interests!
While Child has pointed out that
Not only may the response
of
organisational decision makers
to
situational factors depend upon
their own set
of
preferences (and to some extent upon those of other groups whose support is
needed) concerning the mode
of
organisation
to
be utilised, but additionally the notion
of
effectiveness upon which contingency theory relies is meaningful
to
decision-makers only in
relation to their own criteria
of
performance9
These comments appear particularly apposite to the following study
of
change within
UCA'M'.
THE
BUILDING WORKER
On
1
January
1970
the Amalgamated Society
of
Painters and Decorators
(A.S.P.&D.) and the Association
of
Building Technicians (A.B.T.) transferred their
engagements" to the Amalgamated Society
of
Woodworkers (A.S.W.), and in
December
of
that year the Amalgamated Union
of
Building Trade Workers
(A.U.B.T.W.) also agreed to transfer its engagements. UCATT thereby came into
existence
on
1
July
1971
with 262,600 members, the tenth largest union affiliated to the
T.U.C., and
firmly
based upon the traditional building crafts. Although it has member-
ship in shipbuilding and repair, steel, engineering, furniture making, local authorities
and the National Health Service, a clear majority'l
of
UCATT's membership is em-
ployed in the privately owned sector of the building industry. The nature
of
the building
trade and its workers is therefore central to understanding pressures
for
organisational
change in UCATT.
The private sector
of
the building industry is well known as one in which employers
have a casual attitude towards labour and workers in turn show little commitment
towards employers. The alleged reasons
for
this are familiar and need not be discussed
here.'* Perhaps the central point is that as each stage in the construction is completed the
worker knows that he will soon have to seek work elsewhere. It is an industry which both
attracts and fashions workers who seek 'the big penny' yet are individualistic, indepen-
dent, physically hard, and conscious
of
craft differences. The younger ones, particularly,
are likely to change jobs often.13 Labour-only sub-contracting,
or
'lump' working, has a
long history in the building industry and from the later
1940s
up to the early
1970s
it
was, in its various forms, a growing phenomenon.14
For
their part the employers have
been extremely fragmented, although they are becoming less
so.
The Phelps Brown
Report recorded that one-fifth of operatives were in the eighty-five firms with
1,200
or
more
employee^.^^
The problems for trade unions are obvious. First, both the ethos and the technological
and market 'environment'
of
the industry make it difficult to organise men and even
more difficult to retain them. For example, in
1973
UCATT recruited
40,000
members
and lost
53,000.
As
a
result
of
this kind
of
membership turnover it is hard for the unions
to achieve consistent workplace pressure. The more members move from job to job the
more difficult it is to obtain reliable collectorslg and shop stewards. Site organisation
is
therefore very patchy and on many small sites does not exist at all. Where it does exist it
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