Essential Industries Disputes Settlement Board -- with threat of a strike looming overhead.

More than 100 Bermuda Industrial Union workers met at BIU headquarters last night over the breakdown of negotiations with the Hotel Employers of Bermuda.

BIU president Mr. Ottiwell Simmons MP said afterwards workers had expressed their disappointment that a wage settlement could not be reached with the HEB and that hoteliers had called on Government to intervene.

"We now await the Minister's decision regarding intervention,'' Mr. Simmons said.

He added: "By a show of hands, the workers voted that if it should become necessary, there will be a strike. They are seeking a speedy and equatable settlement.'' Labour Minister the Hon. J. Irving Pearman said yesterday he had made a decision regarding intervention that was within legislative guidelines and expected the Labour Relations Officer would be sharing it with the BIU today.

He declined to comment until then. But it is likely the contract talks will go before the Essential Industries disputes board.

HEB executive officer Mr. John Harvey has told the BIU that the "process of mediation will not be productive nor successful''.

Mr. Harvey requested that an Essential Industries Disputes Settlement Board step in and be convened "as early as possible'' so that awards could be made on the outstanding issues and the BIU's "outlandish demands''.

This, he said, was consistent with the Labour Relations Amendment Act of 1991.

But Mr. Simmons has challenged the position saying the law stipulated that when parties in an essential industry have irreconcilable differences, the collective agreement that existed prior to the beginning of negotiations "shall be deemed to be in force and shall continue to be in force until replaced by the new agreement''. And it was this section of the law he claimed the HEB itself wanted repealed.

Mr. Simmons said: "What the HEB wants is peace without a price and I can tell peace is not free to anybody. We all have to pay for it.''