Government and workers' representatives presented an upbeat stance yesterday after a meeting in the Senate Chamber to discuss outstanding labour issues.

And workers' grievances are now firmly on the front-burner - with regular meetings promised by the Premier.

The two-hour meeting began after Premier Jennifer Smith made a brief statement to the media and workers gathered outside.

"Let me just welcome everyone to the Cabinet office. I'm pleased to address your concerns...One of the complaints is not having concern for the average person so I want you to know that I have offered and am offering again right now to meet with your divisional presidents on a quarterly basis."

She said that meetings can start this coming Thursday at a time to be determined by the workers. "I am prepared to meet after regular working hours, if that is the better solution. I have every confidence that we can establish a satisfactory process going forward to air concerns and to resolve potential problems in a timelier manner."

Ms Smith had promised to hold yesterday's meeting following a Bermuda Industrial Union (BIU) led protest march by 1,500 workers on Friday morning.

The march ended at the House of Assembly steps just prior to the start of the new Parliamentary session.

At issue were several longstanding matters involving Cablevision, Serco Aviation Services, the Bermuda Aquarium and Stevedoring Services.

BIU president Derrick Burgess described the meeting as "very productive" and said he was optimistic that "solutions would be forthcoming very, very shortly".

He said all outstanding issues were discussed. "The Labour Minister will be working diligently to solve these issues."

While Friday's action succeeded in disrupting bus and ferry service and garbage collection, Mr. Burgess agreed, when asked, that it was merely a "family spat".

"Our support for the PLP is unconditional," he said. He denied that Friday highlighted any conflict in his dual role as labour leader and Government backbencher. "I represent labour - we have the Progressive Labour Party - I think I'm more than qualified to be in a party representing labour."

He added that Friday's march was not against the labour Government but against "Serco, Cablevision, Stevedoring Services, Islandwide Security and all those employers that are arrogant and disrespect our workers - that's what the march was against".

Labour Minister Terry Lister also said that the meeting had been productive, praised the Labour Relations Office and criticised the media.

"There are many, many issues. However, what you have to realise is that we have many, many companies that are unionised in this Country... It is not surprising that at any point in time the BIU or the BPSA can find themselves faced with multiple outstanding issues - that is the case right now. However, I'm very confident that the hard work and diligence that has been shown by the Labour Relations Office will continue. The efforts that have been made in the past two or three years to resolve longstanding issues have been commendable."

He said he was "surprised and curious" about Friday's march. "If you had asked us on Tuesday or Wednesday last week how things are on the labour front, we would have said as per usual. We did not perceive that there was some great grumbling going on. So we were a bit surprised by that."

Asked whether he would agree that the Government was "caught napping" given the fact that many letters had been written to Government on the issues. He said "the union writes many letters - that's part of the process... In our exchange today, for instance, the union raised about two or three companies that were not raised on Friday which we had not thought about simply because there's a long list. So, if in fact, if we were in today's meeting tomorrow, the union would probably raise two other companies that they think about overnight. The point is there is always a long list of issues that are festering, that are outstanding."

He said the companies that had raised the ire of the workers on Friday were companies that "had proved very difficult to resolve the issues".

Asked whether reports in the media should not have alerted Government to rising discontent among labour, the Minister said : "If we paid attention to the media we would do a lot of crazy things. No, we're not running this Government by what the media prints - that's not how it works."

He added that it was important to realise that very few days had been lost to strike in the last few years.

"The fact that Bermuda has very little days lost to strike is something that gets missed - it's continually missed.

"I have heard, since this Government came in, much talk about labour unrest. However, tell me how many days have been lost to strike."

When nobody could tell him the figure, he said he didn't know either. "But, it's very small. I don't know if it's a hundred in almost four years. It's very low," he said.

Statistics Department figures show 600 man days lost in the years 1999 and 2000 combined as compared to 575 in 1998 and 1,900 in 1997. (See chart above).

"What we have is rumblings. I've had meetings with the union had where he said to me 'look this is a serious problem' and the next day we've pretty much resolved the issue. That is how labour relations work - that's not going to change."

Mr. Burgess said that issues of communication with the Premier had been fully resolved and a crisis alert mechanism had been put in place.

A joint statement issued later by Government Information Services quoted the Premier as saying she hoped "most of the issues discussed today would be resolved before the next quarterly meeting".

Besides BIU president Derrick Burgess, the meeting was attended by the members of the BIU's General Council, the BIU's first vice-president, Chris Furbert and general secretary Molly Burgess.

Also in attendance were Government Ministers Alex Scott, Senator David Burch, the Labour department's permanent secretary Robert Horton and the Labour Relations fficer Larry Burgess.