ABSTRACT:This paper is an analysis of unionization in Italy between 1977 and 1986, with particular reference to the evolution of the three major Italian trade union confederations: the CGIL (Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro), with a communist majority and socialist minority; the CISL (Confederazione Italiana Sindacati Lavoratori), originally linked to the Christian Democrat party, but increasingly autonomous and politically pluralistic; and the UIL (Unione Italiana del Lavoro), with a socialist majority and strong social democrat and republican minorities.After a brief review of earlier studies on the subject, the author traces (for the first time since the seventies) the changes that have taken place in union representation at the sectoral and territorial levels, basing his findings on new classification and methodological criteria.The four principal results that emerge from this study are: a) the overall maintenance of union membership levels over the decade, due to a sharp drop in membership among wage and salary‐earners and a parallel increase among pensioners; b) the considerable decrease of unionization rates, especially in the more industrialized north; c) the limited membership in the services sector, where employment growth is strongest; d) the marked redistribution of each confederation's relative weight, to the benefit of the UIL.Based on this, the author concludes by suggesting that the uneven influence of the economic cycle on unionization at both sectoral and territorial levels, can be explained by the continuing existence of a variety of representation model