ABSTRACT
The preceding three chapters have examined the work of full-time trade union officers and industrial relations specialists in management and have identified the major tasks engaged in by the two interrelated occupations. This chapter turns to consider more closely the individuals who 'people' these occupations and it looks at some of their personal characteristics, their work histories and their explanations of how they come to be engaged in this particular kind of work. Their individual accounts will be $iill$ examined for common themes and for evidence of similarities and differences between people working within the two occupational groups and in different sectors of the economy. In this way, the relationship between individual action and experience and social structure and institutions may be examined by making use of the concepts of history, biography and career.
