Three disputes, three union leaders with very different styles

Alan Johnson of the Communication Workers believes that strikes at the Royal Mail could damage Labour's electoral chances, and that the Government may lift the Royal Mail's monopoly.

Mr Johnson, 46, was educated in Chelsea but his first job was as a postman in Slough, his "union home". In 1992 he became the youngest general secretary in the history of the old postal workers' union. As a member of the Labour Party's national executive he has supported the Blair reforms and backed the abolition of Clause IV.

Chris Darke is responsible for some of the most conservative trade unionists in Britain. His leadership of the British Airline Pilots' Association could be seen as ironic given his past in the Communist Party and his present politics, described as "left of centre" Labour.

Mr Darke, aged 46, has proven himself as a union professional rather than a political radical in his 26 years as a full-time union officer. A fashionable dresser and an amateur pilot, Mr Darke began as an apprentice with GEC in Birmingham and became a design engineer at Lucas.

Lew Adams, 56, is very much a traditional trade unionist wedded to the old-fashioned ethos of the Associated Society of Locomotives, Engineering and Firemen - of which he became General Secretary nearly three years ago. He started work as an engine cleaner when he was 15. In the Seventies he led a series of train drivers' strikes. He bitterly opposes the privatisation of British Rail, but believes fragmentation of the industry could help push up drivers' wages. A former Labour councillor, he was an outspoken critic of Tony Blair's campaign to abolish the party's Clause IV.