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Drawing on an investigation of young hairdressers and beauticians, builders, and IT workers, this article explores the relationship between young employees and staff representatives and trade unions in sectors with typically low union membership. The young employees participating in the study are not among the categories most lacking in job security. However, they do work in professional settings that discourage them from exploring the various possibilities for collective action, particularly staff representation. This article also uncovers the range of mechanisms that generate distance between these young employees and bodies representing staff and qualifies the notion that young workers reject staff representatives and unions out of hand by foregrounding that outright rejection is just one form of distance. From the point of view of judgements on trade unionism, entry by means of socialization sheds light on heterogeneous and socially sited representations of conflictuality and struggle.