Liberal Party.

That would end costly disputes hearings between the union and hoteliers and stop unethical "bill padding and price gouging,'' NLP chairman Mr. Gilbert Darrell said this week.

"The Bermuda Industrial Union/Hotel Employers of Bermuda agreement clearly states that gratuities are not part of the employee's basic wage,'' Mr.

Darrell said. "When one considers the complications to administer this operation, and the cost to the taxpayer of these continuous hearings that go nowhere, this must be the time to return to gratuity by merit on a voluntary tipping basis.

"This will put the matter of tipping squarely between a diligent hotel worker and an appreciative hotel guest.'' Under the current system, the guest was led to believe the mandatory tip went to the workers, when in fact part of it went to the hotel. "Both sides have agreed to this misuse of funds at the hotel guest's expense,'' Mr. Darrell said.

"This is not mandatory tipping. It is bill padding and price gouging.'' After a third hearing on the issue, the Essential Industries Disputes Settlement Board ruled in April that BIU hotel workers were not entitled to increased tips for 1992. The union has said the decision placed hotel workers in a "strike mode.'' Mr. Darrell said mandatory tipping appeared to be "the root of the problem'' between the BIU and HEB.

Hotels charged guests either a fixed gratuity or a percentage, he said.

"The controversy was created when the hotels decided to increase their income by using part of an increased gratuity as a source of extra income.

"The union did not oppose this in principle, but had a problem with the distributed amount of income to them. Consequently the stalemate.'' Public information on the controversy had been poor, and therefore opinions were "not based on fact but on bias,'' Mr. Darrell said.

"It would do the community a real service if it was made very clear what was going on so that this controversy is cleared up. The taxpayers are footing the bill.

MP SCOTT TAKES PEARMAN TO TASK IMM Labour Minister the Hon. Irving Pearman has been accused of "banishing'' young Bermudians to unemployment.

The withering attack came from his Opposition counterpart Mr. Alex Scott.

He said many Bermudians with college and university degrees were now spectators in today's job market.

And he added: "Unschooled, but skilled, craftsmen have been banished to the subculture of unemployment and buried under the yet-to-be-built pyramid of retraining by the Minister of Immigration.

"Further, what should have happened was that major employers/businesses needed to think wider and further ahead.

"What did happen was that businesses took a narrow view and the easy way out by hiring non-Bermudians; and then found themselves stuck with bigger tax bills for more social welfare, bigger prisons, increased crime, and an increasingly expensive, ineffective, and wasteful government education system.'' Mr. Scott said the planned protest over the one percent hospital levy increase represented a failure for Mr. Pearman.

"Because Bermudians who have jobs are less dependent on social assistance there may not have been the necessity for a hospital levy increase or protest march on Parliament if the Minister for Immigration did his job -- of protecting Bermudian jobs!'' Mr. Scott called into question Mr. Pearman's competence and Government's mandate to represent and to serve the interest of Bermudians.