The late Julian Hall used to have a newspaper column called "Through the Looking Glass", so named because he believed everything in Bermuda seemed reversed, just like the Wonderland which Alice entered through a mirror.

That theory certainly seemed to hold true this week when Environment Minister Glenn Blakeney declared during the Parks Department strike that "overtime is a privilege, not a right".

Times have certainly changed in the labour movement when a Progressive Labour Party Minister can make that statement without fear of criticism – or sparking a general strike.

Mr. Blakeney was in fact wrong; overtime is neither a privilege to be given and taken away, nor a right, or least not a right as we understand human rights.

Instead, overtime is simply compensation for time worked outside regular working hours. And in a unionised environment, as in the case of the Parks Department, when and how it should be paid is determined by the collective bargaining agreement between Government and the Bermuda Industrial Union.

Regardless of how the contract is worded, these kinds of clauses in the CBA can also be negotiated depending on the circumstances, and that is what should have happened in this case.

In fact, the Government was correct to seek to give workers doing overtime time in lieu instead of overtime pay. Bermuda's public finances are stretched desperately thin and that the Island as a whole is in a once in a lifetime economic crisis. (Just who to apportion the blame for all of that is a separate matter.)

In the private sector, as was shown in yesterday's newspaper, jobs are being shed as employers try to keep their businesses afloat. In the private sector, overtime bans, redundancies and pay freezes are the norm.

Not so in the public sector, where few jobs have been lost and Government workers received pay increases this year.

So, although this newspaper is sympathetic to the Parks Department workers, they should remember that they still have jobs – and giving up some overtime pay is a small price to pay for job security right now.

Having said that, it is still difficult to understand just how the employees representing the workers ended up facing disciplinary action when they were discussing the overtime issue.

Just what was said to Mr. Blakeney has not been made public, so it is difficult to pass judgment on this, but in general, it is worrying that shop stewards attempting to represent the interests of the workers should end up being reprimanded for showing disrespect.

A broader question is just how Mr. Blakeney ended up being embroiled in these negotiations. These sorts of talks run the risk of becoming very political, and for that reason it is usually better for the senior civil servants in a Ministry to handle face to face negotiations and for politicians to remain behind the scenes.