Across Europe there is debate about the challenge of human resource management to traditional or established industrial relations. Perhaps the most useful approach to examining the changed management of the employment relationship is simply to use the two-way classification of individualism and collectivism. Germany in particular and the European context more broadly are cited in debates as factors which challenge the simple dichotomy between HRM and industrial relations. Organizational level data is drawn on from three countries - (West) Germany, Ireland and the UK - in order to test whether there is indeed a relationship between human resource management policies and industrial relations at an organizational level. The data does not allow certainty about cause and effect: whether HRM type policies have led to a fall in trade union membership, or whether conversely weak trade union organization has facilitated their introduction.