The opposition United Bermuda Party on Friday more or less admitted that it was powerless to stop passage in the House of Assembly of amendments to the Employment Act, including the deletion of the controversial ?opt-out? clause on mandatory time-and-a-half payments for overtime.

Instead, attention will be focused on the Senate, where Bermuda?s constitutional checks and balances will again be tested.

The issue is not as simple as it first appears. Who would argue that people should not get more money for any extra time worked over 40 hours a week? And who would begrudge giving extra money to hard-working people?

The answer, of course, is no one. But no one would say that making local businesses less competitive is a good idea either. And no one would say that bringing in hitherto unnecessary workers to Bermuda, with the additional pressure that brings on the Island?s infrastructure, is a good idea either.

And yet that it is just what businesses and the UBP argue could happen.

To some degree, this argument comes down to different ideas about the nature and desirability of work. The Government and the Bermuda Industrial Union have given the impression in this debate that any time worked over a 40-hour week is an injustice. Of course, instead of following that argument to its logical conclusion and banning any work beyond 40 hours, they instead say that employees should be paid more for it; in effect, levying a sin tax.

But that ignores the fact that some employees want to work more than 40 hours a week and in many cases need the money.

The employers argue that what could happen under the new provisions is that once the overtime bill reaches a certain point, instead of paying existing staff overtime, it would be cheaper to hire a new staff member. That point could come when the current staff had worked anything over an additional 27.5 hours a week, which would equate to 40 hours pay at a time and a half rate.

To be sure, this is not an exact science and in many workplaces the amount of overtime work would be higher than 27.5 hours before additional employees were taken on.

But that is the obvious choice for employers as they attempt to control costs and remain competitive. With full employment of Bermudians, it is likely that any new workers would have to come from abroad, thus adding to demand for housing, transport, schools and so on.

So it is conceivable that the new provisions, which are designed to help employees, could result in Bermudian workers being deprived of income at the same time that more non-Bermudians are required in the workforce; a good example of the law of unintended consequences.

This, in essence, is the problem with which the Senate will have to grapple, presumably at the end of this week. The Government does not have an automatic majority in the upper house and must instead persuade at last one of the Independent Senators to back them in order to pass the bill.

The current group of Independent Senators have a deserved reputation for thinking for themselves, as they should, and they have wide experience in human resources management, so it is likely that the debate will be lively and informed.

It?s likely that the Government will have to do better than depending on the International Labour Organisation to make its case; instead, it will have to show how this legislation will genuinely help Bermudians and Bermuda, which will not be as easy a task as it may have first seemed.