Trade Union Mouvement in Belgium has never been an enduring structured entity. In pluralistic political systems, trade unions develop rather pragmatic relations and act as competitors. Economic recession determined the trade union strategy in the seventies: focus of the policy switches towards employment (instead of income and wages). ABVV (socialist trade union) and ACV (Chrisian trade union) cultivated different viewpoints concerning the solution of crisis, which resulted in a tense relationship. In the early eighties, relations sunk to the ultimate point of rare contacts, none or few common statements and many accusations. From 1982 on, cooperation grew again: contacts intensified and common actions got higher frequency again.