In this paper we present an analysis of the new Italian workers councils (the so called Rappresentanze sindacali unitarie) election. The study is based on a sample of firms where the rsu were voted during 1994. Due to the lack of official detailed data, archives of rsu were organized by the Author. The preliminary result of the research is that the fall, during the past 15 years, of membership and of unions density does not seem to be related to a reduction of the «real» representativeness. When called to vote at the factory council election the workers voted on a mass scale (over 90%) for the same unions which they refused to support through member-ship. The great novelty in the decade was not, as widely believed, the decline in the «appeal» of the confederate unions and the rise of the autonomous unions, but ínstead the profound modification in the way of supporting a trade union. Does that mean that con-sensus will substitute membership?