John Fisher has for many years worked closely with the Transport and General Workers’ Union (TGWU) as a specialist tutor. In this article he tracks and explains the significant movement in this union's response to human resource management. At national and workplace level he observes a shift from an ‘oppositional’ stance to a more complex position. This combines a lingering suspicion of HRM with a new recognition of the need for involvement in the HRM process. the article represents the first report of this significant set of moves from a union long‐noted for its implacable opposition to human resource management init