THE TRAINING OF TRADE UNION OFFICERS
| Author | MARGARET LAWSON,WILLIAM BROWN |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1973.tb00878.x |
| Date | 01 November 1973 |
| Published date | 01 November 1973 |
THE TRAINING
OF
TRADE UNION OFFICERS
THE
TRAINING
EXPERIENCE
AND
REQUIREMENTS
OF
FULL-TIME
TRADE
UNION OFFICERS*
WILLIAM
BROWN? AND
MARGARET
LAWSONS
THIS
study arises from
a
survey commissioned by the Education Committee
of the General Council
of
the Trades Union Congress to investigate the
training needs of first line full-time trade union 0fficers.l A study of training
needs must necessariIy concern itself with a very large range
of
influences
and activities. Consequently, our interest extended beyond training, and
into the background and duties of officers.
First considered is the background
of
basic education and
of
trade
union experience that the officer has on appointment to full-time office.
Next we consider the nature
of
his job and the aspects
of
it to which
training is relevant. Thirdly we survey the training experience that
officers have had, before and since appointment, considering both the
quantity of training and the content and nature
of
it. Finally we analyse
the facilities made available to officers by their unions and the specific
needs that they see themselves to have.
THE
SAMPLE
The study is concerned with those full-time union officers who are
classed as ‘first-line’
by
their union. This excludes full-time branch
secretaries. It covers those officers employed by their union under
a
variety
of
titles (e.g. Area Organizer, District Secretary, Regional
Officer) to deal directly with trade union lay members in their day-to-day
negotiating
and
administrative work. A hundred and seventy-five
of
these
officers were interviewed. For comparison, the number involved in the
two similar surveys by Clegg, Killick and Adams and the Government
Social Surveya had been, respectively,
190
and
183.
Eight of the officers in
our sample were women.
*
The interviewing programme for this study was completed over the Easter vacation of
1970
by students of Ruskin College,
of
the
M.A.
(Industrial Relations) course at Warwick University
and by members of the Warwick Centre for Industrial and Business Studies. The authors
wish
to express their gratitude to these many individuals and also to Hugh Clegg who organized and
supervised the study, to John Birch, Ian Ebraston, Carole Dean and Michael Mellish for their
work
on it, and to Carol Bailey of the T.U.C. who was
of
great assistance throughout.
t
Research Fellow at the S.S.R.C. Indusmal Relations Research Unit at Warwick University
$
Administrative Assistant (Academic Planninq) at the Open University
The Report
of
the Working Party on the Triining of Trade Union Full-Time
Officers
was
a
H.
A.
Clegg,
A.
J.
Killick, and
R.
Adam,
Trude
Union
Oflcers,
Blackwell,
1961
;
Govern-
published
as
Training
Full-Time
O&cers,
Trades Union Congress,
1972
ment Social Survey,
Work@lucc
Industrid
Rclntions,
H.M.S.O.,
1968
43
1
432
BRITISH
JOURNAL
OF
INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
The sample was selected from
35
trade unions affiliated to the T.U.C.
The largest nine (those with over
200,000
members) were the Transport
and General Workers’ Union, Amalgamated Union of Engineering and
Foundry Workers (as it was titled at the time), General and Municipal
Workers’ Union, National Association of Local Government Officers,
Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, Electrical, Electronic
and Plumbing Trades Union, Society of Graphical and Allied Trades, and
the National Union of Railwaymen. The remainder included nine unions
with under
50,000
members.
Certain sampling aberrations should be noted. The
T.
&
G.W.U.
sample was drawn from the Midlands alone. Our enquiries suggest,
however, that
as
far as the prime interest of the survey is concerned,
training needs and experience, this sample is not unrepresentative.
Secondly, there
is
an under-representation of officers from the old
A.E.U.,
an over-representation from USDAW and a complete absence of officers
from the Mineworkers’ or the Post Office unions. It
is
unlikely that the
final analysis
is
materially affected
by
these weaknesses. Apart from mining
and communications, the trade union membership serviced by these
officers was distributed between industries in much the same pattern as
total trade union membership.
Although trade union head offices took part in the selection of the
sample, the basic characteristics of the officers in the equivalent unions in
our sample were very similar to those of the sample selected for the
1966
Government Social Survey. The number of members, stewards and
branches per officer were all within three per cent of the figures from the
1966
survey. Although our sample was on average slightly less than three
years younger and had about two years less experience in the present job
than the members of the 1966 sample, this bias
is
unlikely to be of statisti-
cal significance to the following analysis.
In what follows we distinguish between large and small unions with
a
membership
of
100,000 as the dividing line. We distinguish between
manual and white collar unions and also consider the ‘general unions’
(T.
&
G.W.U.,
G.
&
M.W.U.,
USDAW
and
NUPE)
separately.
THE
BACKGROUND
OF
TRADE
UNION
OFFICERS
Trade union officers appear to be being appointed younger and with
better basic education than was the case for Clegg
ct
al.’s
sample
of
the
1950s.
Manual union officers in our sample had taken office (at an average
age
of
37.9
years) three years younger than those
of
the earlier sample.
The change in the pattern
of
basic schooling between the surveys is
given in Table
1.
It shows a continuing improvement in education which
is
greater than that which might be expected from the improvement in
national education standards alone.
The experience that an officer has had in trade union work before his
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