United States in the nineteenth century failed because the union leaders had nothing to offer more than a confrontational attitude. Leaders encouraged the early unions to disaster by making unreasonable demands and forcing strikes which hurt their members more than the companies they were confronting. After a chain of ugly strikes union members themselves became disillusioned and sought new leaders who could deliver on their promises.

That opened the way for Samuel Gompers who was considered "great'' by his followers and his adversaries because he negotiated with business and not against it. He reached mutually beneficial compromises and became known as both reasonable and trustworthy.

Gompers' rule was that it was better to negotiate and get "half-a-loaf'' than to strike and get no loaf at all. He also knew that damaging a business was counter-productive because it eliminated the very profits which made it possible for his workers to get more.

Samuel Gompers also spurned the socialist leanings of the European trade unions because he knew that leftist ideals were not compatible with the democratic system that many of his followers had sought when they emigrated to the United States.

American corporations learned from Samuel Gompers that a happy, well looked after and well paid work force was the most important ingredient for success and profit. Many of the benefits and facilities workers take for granted today Gompers fought for. This is not to say that union-management relations in Gompers' day were always easy but it helped to have reasonableness which produced greater benefits. The secret of success for both sides was increased productivity and that came about when employees and management co-operated to improve the product whatever it was.

In Bermuda's case, ongoing labour disruption and unrealistic demands have damaged tourism. Bermuda's main industry has been strangled because there has been very little union-management co-operation or even informal talk to improve the product and there has been little increased productivity to go along with high wage demands. The union may well have diminished the product offered to the customer and thus decreased the benefits to its members. Hotels without cash to improve their facilities and with lesser service cannot please the customer and increase the dollars to management or workers. It's a fact of life.

When any country faces such problems it should do so in a unified way and each citizen should be prepared to make the sacrifices that will cure the ill. The new president of the United States, faced with the fact that his country is not competing well with Europe or Japan just as Bermuda is not competing well with other resorts, is leading America towards such sacrifice. We think Bermuda should follow suit. There is little evidence in Bermuda today that a pampered population, from Government to management to worker, is prepared to make much of a concession at all to the economic realities facing this Island.

Bermudians have to work together to plan a future that reflects the harsh realities rather than dreamily recalling a past when the dollars simply rolled in. This should not be a party political process but a non-partisan effort because the stakes are too high to allow our usual political squabbling and our usual labour-management confrontation to ensure failure.