The objectives of this thesis are twofold. First, to provide an empirical test on two analytical approaches outlined by Beaumont and Elliott (1986) as possible explanations on the union joining/union choice process amongst nurses. The first model stresses the role of personal values (represented indirectly by the personal and demographic profiles of individuals) that employees "bring into" their workplace. The second model focuses on the "historical patterns of organisations (of the RCI and the TUC affiliates) in the different parts of the nursing service" (p.3). My second objective is to identify and ascertain the relative importance of key determinants that differentiate existing RCI (Royal College of Nursing) and non-RCN members. This thesis seeks to look at the whole unionisation process. Apart from asking what particular influences determine a nurse's choice between joining the Confederation of Health Service Employees (COHSE), lational Union of Public Employees (NOPE), lational and Local Government Officers' Assoication (NALGQ) and the RCI, it also looks at why nurses choose to stay with the same employee organization or change to another health union. Xore importantly, it aims to find out how RCI members and members from COHSE/NUPE/IALGO differ in their attitude towards professionalism (nurses' attitude towards the nursing profession and their own involvement vii flbstract in strike action) and trade unionism in the nursing sector. Discriminant analysis is performed to ascertain the relative importance of these attitudinal variables, in conjunction with establishment characteristics