Dozens of workers at the new senior school project were flabbergasted yesterday morning when they arrived at work to find they did not have a job.

Police had secured the site following Works Minister Ashfield DeVent?s decision ? announced after 6 p.m. on Tuesday evening ? to terminate the ProActive Management Services? contract to build the school.

Workers and subcontractors were allowed onto the site to pick up any tools and equipment left there. Before 9.30 a.m. many of the unionised workers had been asked to go to the Bermuda Industrial Union headquarters.

Some of the workers milling around outside the site expressed anger and disappointment at the development which was first communicated to them through the media.

And the ruling Progressive Labour Party Government came in for some heavy criticism over their handling of the troubled project, with one describing it as ?a spineless Government?.

Like most others involved in the $70 million project, site security worker Donald John (Big Daddy Gates) Galloway had no idea the contract had been terminated and had turned up to work as per usual.

?We have a spineless Government,? he said. ?This is ridiculous. I love doing my job and I was very proud of working at this project and to have it pulled from under us like this ? am I mad ? yeah I am mad.?

Mr. Galloway said he had changed his view of the Government.

?I thought that they were a Government of the people, whether you were black, white, red or blue, but it doesn?t seem to be working,? he said.

?Whether they be UBP or PLP, what is important is that they are for the people. I mean all these years with both Governments bickering and bickering on this little small jive Island, where we should be doing things excellently and together for the good of the people.

?We are just spending up the tax payers money doing a whole lot of ignorance.?

Mr. Galloway added that he felt that the United Bermuda Party should not be able to dictate how the Government how to run this project.

?I mean we voted them in and they are going to do this to us ? they are in for a rude awakening,? he said, ?The water is getting hot and they are all going to take a bath for the ignorance that they are doing.?

Manager and concrete expert Stephen Ebbin, said that some 110 to 115 employees on the site lost their jobs yesterday. ?I am just shocked and appalled,? he said.

?What I have to contend with is that I have a two-year-old son and he is a Bermudian. And is this what he has to face? That is the ultimate question. And does the community have to accept that Government is always right and everyone else is always wrong?

?These guys (the Government) are not accountable and are obviously not accountable to the voter. We are like a doormat to them.?

He added that a ?great agenda? was being pursued and it had nothing to do with completing the project, and that all parties concerned ? the taxpayer, the company and Government had lost out.

?Now on top of the additional money that they have to spend to get somebody else in - and I will tell you that this building had so many structural and architectural glitches and the process to correct them and the company that comes in is going to charge the Government for that,? he said. ?I have done a lot of work up there for next to nothing.?

He said the contract was close to being completed, but the Ministry had created cash flow problems by disputing the company?s claims.

?Money has never flowed properly throughout this whole contract. Every time he (Arthur Ebbin) puts in a claim they are always saying 40 percent less. So how do you expect a company to keep operating??

Politicians had played Berkeley like a ?ping pong ball? he continued.

?My son might go to this school one day and not to sound selfish, I am almost being robbed of a beautiful experience where I can say to my son that he is going to sit in the school that daddy built.

?All because of what ? agendas, which have nothing to do with the completion of the project. And does Government really look like they want to complete this project? No. And how they have treated this company throughout the process, have they looked like they wanted to work with us? No.?

?I have never seen anything like this before and I hope I never see it again,? said a Canadian guest worker who preferred not to be named.

Subcontractor Gene Whitecross, whose company Whitecross Flooring had a $400,000 contract to work on flooring and other aspects of finishing the building, said his experience with ProActive had been a good one.

?They paid me right up front. My cheques were on time. We never had a problem,? he said. ?I?m very disappointed. These guys treated me well.?

He said the building was practically finished and just interior work remained.

?What we need as a country and a people is to work together in every way to get things done,? said operator Ronnie Anderson who echoed Mr. Whitecross and said that ProActive had been a good company to work for.

?Let?s stop this slashing and cutting and get down to putting the best interests of the country first and if we all do that it would be a better place.?

He said he had suffered bad cheques in the past but the company had long sorted out that problem.

But Mr. Whitecross could sense that something was going to happen. ?There was a shadow hanging over us,? he said.

?We knew we had a lot of work to do and we knew that the deadline was coming... You can see where you are and where you?re not so something had to happen.?

Workers? estimates of the time needed to complete the project varied from six to 18 months.