During a time when a new collective agreement is being negotiated, about 100 Bermuda Electric Light Company workers walked off the Pembroke plant around noontime yesterday to hold an impromptu meeting in the parking lot.

The members of the Electrical Supply Trade Union returned to work immediately afterward. A Belco spokeswoman said simply: ?The ESTU held a meeting today to update their members (on continuing negotiations).?

But the meeting may represent a more urgent reality of growing tensions between the two sides. It was hastily thrown together, scheduled only a few hours before it took place.

A source inside the ESTU tells the sides have been talking for days and things haven?t gone as well as the Union had hoped.

Thursday?s meeting was held quietly outside of a Belco office building and ended just as rain began to fall with the group decided it would not take any new action against its employer, at least not yet.

The Belco spokeswoman would only add: ?The (negotiating) process is continuing.?