to resolve an issue that threatens their unsigned contract for thousands of hotel workers.

The Essential Industries Disputes Settlement Board will hold the meeting to settle a gratuities pay dispute that hoteliers see as a "deal breaker.

'' The meeting would hear arguments from the Hotel Employers of Bermuda and the union on a Board decision ordering the retroactive payment of gratuities to workers.

Neither party was present in May when the Board ordered hoteliers to pay workers gratuities for 1992 -- a decision strongly opposed by the HEB.

Last night, Labour Minister the Hon. Irving Pearman said there remained an "issue of interpretation'' on that ruling.

He indicated the presence of the two sides would help resolve the issue by allowing the Board to hear their arguments.

But last night it was not clear if the union would cooperate.

BIU president Mr. Ottiwell Simmons MP said: "I don't see any need to call for a meeting.'' HEB executive Mr. John Harvey said the meeting was necessary to counter the "false and erroneous'' decision by the Board.

He said the Board's original wording on gratuities in its January 14 contract settlement was very clear. "Now for some reason, there's a new interpretation.'' The point of dispute is a ruling by the Board chairman Professor Ronald Haughton, who handed down the 1991-1994 contract settlement in January after more than two years of wrangling.

The BIU, in reviewing it, asked the Board to support its argument that hotels should have paid its workers gratuities increases during 1992.

The hotels countered that the Haughton Award did not include increases for that year.

They referred to Haughton Award language specifying increases were to come in effect "for each of the remaining two years'' of the 1991-1994 contract -- a statement that excluded 1992.

At a special board meeting on the issue in April, the Board recognised "there is an ambiguity... which must be resolved.

"It is possible that the reference to the `remaining two years' should have been to the `remaining three years,' '' the board said.

Nevertheless, it decided that the 25 cents gratuities increase imposed for 1993 and 1994 should also include 1992. In supporting that finding, it cited a passage from the original Haughton Award that gratuities increases adopted in an earlier contract arrangement "be continued throughout the period of this award.'' Professor Haughton concluded that "This means that the 25 cents must apply to all four years of the Agreement.