management this week, according to the head of the Bermuda Industrial Union.

Mr. Ottiwell Simmons said he expected more than 1,000 names would be on the petitions to be presented to Hotel Employers of Bermuda executive Mr. John Harvey.

A copy would likely be presented to Labour and Home Affairs Minister the Hon.

Irving Pearman, Mr. Simmons told The Royal Gazette .

The gratuities dispute is one of two roadblocks that have kept a 1991-1994 contract affecting BIU hotel workers from being signed.

Hotel bosses and the BIU have had different interpretations of an Essential Industries Disputes Settlement Board decision that spelled out the contract.

The union believes workers should be paid tip increases of 25 cents per worker per day from 1992. The HEB disagrees.

In August, the EIDSB reversed an earlier decision by the same board and said the workers were not owed the gratuities.

But the BIU has persisted in its fight.

The petition reads, in part: "We are claiming the gratuities that your hotel members collected during 1992 and onward, and failed to remit same to your tipped employers who are the legal owners of these monies.

"Failure on your part to promptly settle this matter will cause us to take the necessary legal and/or industrial action to recover our claimed gratuities. Also included must be a seven percent interest charge.

"Moreover, we will be forced to institute proceedings for damages and any other legal claims against the HEB to the fullest extent of the law.'' Mr. Simmons said he believed the total amount owed was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

HEB president Mr. Dennis Tucker said the August ruling "should have put to rest this issue of gratuities''.

The other stumbling block is that only six of the 20 hotels mentioned in the award have agreed to sign the contract, though they all have been abiding by its terms.

"To consummate an agreement, it's got to be signed,'' by all the hotels, Mr.

Simmons said. "Government has a duty -- they appointed a board.

"They should persuade them and they should encourage them to respect these boards and these awards.''