Abstract: | Critics and advocates of union–management partnership agreements offer competing assessments of the potential outcomes for workplace union representation. These include the attenuation of the role of lay activists and intra‐union conflict. In this case study of Amicus‐MSF at Legal & General partnership involved centralised decision making, membership loss and activist‐leadership tensions, but these were temporary. With employer support the local union leadership ‘cultivated’ a cadre of pro‐partnership activists with extended reach into management decision making, increasing membership and strengthening workplace organisation. |