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Alberta, Canada, has shown a decline in unionization levels over the past few years. Part of this decline can be attributed to environmental developments in the 1980s that combined to increase hostility to unions. Philosophically, unions accepted a limited role in Albertan society and tried to rely on collective bargaining to advance their members' interests. In practice, unions attempted to realize their philosophy by following an action orientation emphasizing immediate economic interest (real wage increases and job security) in collective negotiations. Union decline is the result of an inconsistency between unions' adversarial view and their inability to realize the economic objectives that this view promotes. An attempt is made to test whether an inconsistency exists between unions' view of industrial relations and their effectiveness in securing real wage gains.