management and hotel workers, Hotel Employers of Bermuda lawyer Mr. Stephen Shawe said yesterday.

"Hobgood is finished,'' he said. "It's no longer a basis, in our view, to the resolution.'' "The BIU does not agree with that stipulation,'' responded Bermuda Industrial Union president Mr. Ottiwell Simmons MP.

Mr. Simmons and HEB president Mr. Dennis Tucker battled it out at the completion of the latest week of hearings before the Essential Industries Disputes Settlement Board.

The two spent most of the yesterday's hearing disagreeing over the finer points of the report mediated by Mr. William Hobgood last year.

The last collective agreement between management and workers expired on February 24, 1991. The hearing into the contract dispute, chaired by Prof.

Ronald Haughton, has twice been adjourned since it began in May this year.

Yesterday Mr. Simmons accused the HEB of reneging on its promise to be bound to the settlement, but admitted that the union had backed out of the proposal first.

He said he recalled former Labour Minister the Hon. Sir John Sharpe coming down hard on the BIU publicly because it rejected the award. Mr. Hobgood, he said, also sent a letter expressing his disappointment.

He said the HEB escaped this criticism because it did not publicly acknowledge it rejected the award.

"The character, credibility and the reputation of the BIU has been knocked about,'' said Mr. Simmons. "It's never been so low. Never before has the reputation of the HEB been so high because people think they have stuck to their word. But today they reveal they didn't adopt it at all.'' Mr. Tucker said it was "very wrong'' and "very misleading'' of Mr. Simmons to lead people to think the HEB reneged on its promise.

He said that all HEB members had adopted the Hobgood award but that the report was incomplete and they were unable to implement it as it stood even if they wanted to.

"On May 21, the BIU reneged on its promise,'' he said. "From that time on, as far as we were concerned, we did not want anything further to do with the BIU. That was the watershed event that changed our relationship forever.

"He gave his word he would be bound and the BIU reneged on its promise. After that it became open season within the hotel industry in reference to its relations with the BIU.'' Mr. Tucker said the proposed wage increase of five percent for 1992 and six percent for 1993 was adopted by all HEB members except for Elbow Beach Hotel.

However, because of the Island's poor economic state "we determined we could not live up to the Hobgood financial award.'' He said the "hotels did what was best for the properties and for their employees'' and proposed a wage freeze for 1991, 1.5 and three percent increases respectively for live-in and live-out employees for 1992 and a similar increase for 1993.

Mr. Simmons complained that Mr. Hobgood met with HEB and Government representatives in New York without the BIU in attendance.

However Mr. Tucker said this was because "it was the employers impression that the meeting in New York was taking place on behalf of the BIU.''