Mr Jack O'Connor is by far the strongest candidate in conventional terms in the election for SIPTU vice-president. He has nominations from 85 SIPTU branches, compared with 14 for Mr Jack Nash, four for Ms Carolann Duggan and two for Ms Nuala Kerr. Mr O'Connor also has widespread support from SIPTU shop stewards.
Although only 43 years old he has almost 30 years' experience as a trade union organiser and negotiator. He left school at 16 and by 18 was a shop steward, having organised men on the pipeline construction project where he worked. At 23, he was a full-time branch secretary.
Regional secretary for the midlands and south-east, he has expanded local SIPTU membership by 20 per cent, compared with 15 per cent growth nationally. He has been one of the most successful organisers of formerly non-unionised workplaces, using a cell-type structure to recruit members and win recognition.
Mr O'Connor was also architect of new national industrial structures within the union, which has found its regional organisation inadequate for dealing with some sectors. In short he is the ideal candidate for the job, where a strong industrial relations track record is vital.
Within the SIPTU triumvirate of president, general secretary and vice-president, it is the vice-president who is responsible for overseeing industrial relations strategy and day-to-day troubleshooting. But the gender factor is becoming increasingly important within SIPTU.
Forty per cent of its membership is female, but it has no female general officers. It is no accident that on this occasion two of the four candidates are women and they are not allowing lack of industrial experience to cramp their style.
One is Ms Carolann Duggan. Despite being the youngest candidate, at 39, she is a battle-scarred veteran of four SIPTU election campaigns. With an unashamed revolutionary socialist programme, she surprised the trade union world by winning 37,940 votes, or 42.3 per cent, when she stood for the union's presidency on an anti-social-partnership platform against Mr Jimmy Somers in 1997.
The following September her vote fell to 21,074, or 20.5 per cent, when she stood for the vice-presidency against Mr Des Geraghty, who has now succeeded Mr Somers as union president. Although her vote is thought to have peaked, she managed a respectable 24,842 when she stood for general secretary against the successful candidate, Mr John McDonnell, in 1998.
She is hoping that the current inflationary pressures will cause a resurgence in opposition to national agreements. However, she has a credibility problem because she has never been on strike and has never held any position above branch level in the union.
The other woman candidate, Ms Nuala Kerr, is seen as far more formidable. She is a member of the national executive and joint manager of the SIPTU-NUI Galway Alliance, which provides training courses for union activists.
Aged 45, Ms Kerr is strongly representative of a new generation of self-taught women in the workplace.
Again she lacks the sort of industrial relations experience of Mr O'Connor and has eschewed the left-wing politics that usually mark aspirants to high office in the trade union movement.
While Mr O'Connor is a member of the Labour Party and Ms Duggan of the Socialist Workers' Party, Ms Kerr describes herself as an independent committed to social justice and equality.
Like Ms Duggan, she is opposed to the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness (PPF), but wants it renegotiated rather than rejected. Her stance has lost her some support among other executive members who feel she should have accepted collective responsibility and argued for the majority decision within the NEC to recommend the PPF to members.
Her campaign is technology-driven. She is relying primarily on her Website, www.siptu.com, to reach members. The purchase of the name has caused some annoyance in Liberty Hall. The only other candidate with a Website is Mr O'Connor, who opted for the more modest address of www.jackoconnor.org
The final candidate is Mr Jack Nash, the Dublin regional secretary for the private sector. He has direct responsibility for 32,000 members and also oversees the interests of another 10,000 acquired by SIPTU from amalgamations with smaller unions representing groups as diverse as printers, dockers, painters and taxi-drivers.
At 53 he is the oldest candidate and has spent most of his career in Northern Ireland. A native of Derry, he was active in the civil rights struggle.
Since transferring to Dublin he has become heavily involved with the anti-drugs campaign. He is now joint chairman of the Dublin Cityside Drugs Crisis Campaign.
While he is proud of his industrial relations record he wants to expand the role of SIPTU vice-president to cover social and community activities. "Once we conclude a national agreement we can't go to sleep for the next three years," he says. "We have to be relevant, and have to be seen as relevant to the needs of the wider community."
He believes the PPF should be reviewed after a year. He eschews the use of a Website, saying not every SIPTU member has a computer. But he admits it will be a factor in future elections.