"Slovenian trade unions – after the changes in the early 1990s and then a period of stabilisation at relatively high levels of density which lasted for more than a decade – have, in the second half of the last decade, and in accordance with the gradual, irreversible long-term changes in the employment structure and the recent contextual pressures, started to decline rapidly. We have found that the intensity of this change, which started to occur when Slovenia entered the EU, is comparable to the massive changes of the early 1990s. Analysis shows us that, within just a few years, the trade union density rate dropped from 40 per cent to less than 30. The share of unionised blue-collar workers is declining relatively rapidly. Unionisation within public services is stable and/or growing, but not intensively enough to substitute for losses in manufacturing industry. In the concluding part of the article we try to offer – in a sketchy, stylised manner – some explanations for this quite dramatic, unfavourable trend, which have their roots in the twin aims of Slovenia's transition. "

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