"The aim of the paper is to take a closer look behind the curtain of low aggregate trade union densities in retail and to outline the major obstacles and problems trade union organising faces in the retail trades. Trade union organising and recruitment is analysed against the background of a 'two hurdle model of organising' (cf. Haas 2000, Dribbusch 2003) derived from explanations on trade union membership put forward by Green (1990) and Disney (1990). Within this framework the first hurdle to be taken is the establishment of a workplace presence as a precondition for any sustainable membership development. The second hurdle is then to convince the potential members in the workplace to join i.e. the recruitment. To perform the task of organising, the unions have to struggle with structural constraints, but they act as well as "architects of their own destiny" (Frege 1999) having a wide range of alternative policies at their disposal (cf. Heery et al 2000). Therefore, an analysis of trade union organising attempts and subsequent successes will have to combine both "structuralist" and "interventionist" perspectives (cf. Mason and Bain 1993; Kelly 1997). As organising and recruitment is a potentially contentious issue between unions and employers, the balance of power between the two parties has to be taken into account as well (cf. Kelly and Waddington 1995, Hyman 1996). The structural power of shop workers is weak as most of them are relatively easy to replace and the dispersion and fragmentation of the workforce make it particularly difficult to develop “associational power” (Wright 2000). The argument put forward is that despite structural obstacles organising and recruitment in retail is possible but that to successfully manage unionisation for more than a minority of workers will require institutional support through statutory protection and encouragement of trade union membership. This paper is based on the findings of a major research study on trade union membership and organising in retail (Dribbusch ...