Bermuda Industrial Union (BIU) was celebrating yesterday after the Privy Council in London ruled Stevedoring Services was wrong to keep an injunction hanging over the heads of union officers which could have resulted in them being jailed.

The union can also look forward to a hefty pay-out from the employers after the court ruled that Stevedoring Services must meet all the costs of the legal battle - which stood at $54,000 before it reached the Privy Council.

The company got the injunction against BIU president Derrick Burgess, vice-president Chris Furbert, and Portworkers' division president Sinclair Smith in 1998 banning them from authorising overtime bans.

Stevedoring Services said last night it thought the injunction was overturned on a "technicality" and said it believed the ruling made it clear that workers must carry out overtime when asked to do so.

The company used the same injunction following a further dispute in 2000 when the union claimed Stevedoring Services failed to abide by an arbitrated award.

But the Privy Council, the highest court of appeal, has ruled that keeping the injunction for separate disputes was abuse of process, Mr, Burgess said yesterday.

"The Privy Council stated that the 1998 injunction against the banning of overtime was left hanging over the heads of the defendants more than a year later in the course of an entirely

different dispute," said Mr. Burgess.

"The court found that this was an abuse of process. You can't hold that over someone's head forever, that's tantamount to slavery.

"You can't hold an injunction over someone indefinitely. This is a major victory for the union and for workers in this country.

"There is no law in the western world that says that over-time is mandatory.

Over-time is only in terms of emergencies, and we don't go against that.

"It means workers have the right to say 'I cannot work tonight, I can only work when I am obligated'.

"Under the collective agreement we have at the docks, if they can't work overtime, they don't. That's their right."

Mr, Burgess said relations on the docks, where cargo was piled up in 1998 following the overtime ban, were generally quiet.

"We have tried to make peace on the docks and to have good relationships there. It has been a very testing time for the workers and for us, but they are operating."

A Stevedoring Services spokesman said last night: "In our opinion, the injunction was overturned on a technicality.

"The judgement clarifies some of the grey areas in Bermuda's labour legislation as it applies to ports i.e. all functions of the docks are essential services (not just food, animal feed and medicines) and there is also an obligation on employees to work overtime when assigned to do so.

"Now that this has been finalised, Stevedoring Services expects that the good working relationship that has developed between the company and the its employees will continue as it has over the past 18-24 months since all this started.

"We have been able to talk our problems through rather than stopping work and then talking in a confrontational manner.

"Communication and trust are probably at their highest level ever on the docks. If this is what it has cost in time and money to achieve this new relationship, then in the company's opinion it has been worth it."