Unions around the world are facing difficult times in the organized workplace. The phrase “unions live and die in the workplace” sooner or later becomes a reality. The likely obituary for unions around the world is declining membership, collapsing density, weakening bargaining power and loss of importance and place in politics. Analyzes of trade unionism in the literature over the past twenty years have generally referred to a crisis in trade unionism. Most authors speak of “unions under siege,” “stagnant and declining,” and “on the brink of death.” Touraine (1986, p. 157), for his part, argued that “movements such as syndicalism have a life history: childhood, youth, maturity, old age and death”. While Metcalf (2005, p. 28), in his analysis of British unions, pessimistically stated that the future of unions is “bleak” and that “perdition is more likely than resurgence”. What happens to unions or whether they still have a future is becoming increasingly uncertain. Do they still have the capacity to shape their own future? Unions are said to have powerful traditions and an inherited structure that is often seen as an obstacle but can potentially be a resource for renewal. Ironically, analyzes of the decline of unionism in the literature go hand in hand with a growing body of research on union renewal. This is a paradox in the social sciences in recent years, as scholars have become increasingly interested in the labor movement despite the retreat of unions as a global force (Phelan 2007; Burawoy 2008; Heery 2009). . These scholarly efforts recognized the many innovations in labor circles that counterbalance the deterministic and fatalistic view of the death of unionism and their...... middle of paper ...... among unions. In terms of governance and administration, union members were more comfortable with maintaining the status quo and feared being disenfranchised, leaders were more worried about losing their political base, and staff were unsure. not exactly where he would fit into the new organization, if at all. structural change (Fletcher and Hurd 2001). In summary, the decline of international unions can be attributed to socio-economics and modernization, the changing role of the state, and well-established union structures and policies that have compounded the various effects of the changing environment. The narrative of the decline of unions occupies a growing part of the industrial relations literature, but it does not completely dominate it. Empirical evidence suggests that unions have innovated in the face of decline, and the prospects and conditions for union revival..