footsteps and refusing to recognise the Bermuda Industrial Union any longer.

The revelation came from lawyer Mr. Alan Dunch yesterday during a derisive final submission to the Essential Industries Disputes Settlement Board, which is hearing the Grotto Bay/BIU row over whether a collective bargaining agreement exists at the hotel.

BIU president Mr. Ottiwell Simmons MP delivered an equally stinging final speech.

He charged Grotto Bay with "victimising'' its employees and launched a barrage of personal attacks on hotel managing director Mr. George Robinson, likening him at one stage to a "misplaced bull'' and the singer Frank Sinatra.

Mr. Dunch said the BIU must wake up and face the reality that employers do not have to recognise the union and collective agreements are not for life.

He said the only reason the two parties were before the board was because the BIU refused to bargain with Grotto Bay, choosing to "run to Government'' and "picket'' instead.

Mr. Dunch said the BIU "ignored'' every opportunity it was offered to come to a working agreement with the hotel, leaving Mr. Robinson no choice but to put into effect his controversial new contract no longer recognising the BIU and abolishing mandatory tipping.

"The travesty of this hearing is how it has openly demonstrated the union's wholesome inability to come to grips with reality and make progress as opposed to retardation,'' Mr. Dunch said. "The union has displayed its inability to come to grips with what is going on with industrial relations, not only in Bermuda, but also in the rest of the world.'' He claimed the BIU had not presented any evidence to support its contention a collective agreement exists to this day at the hotel.

The hotel's position is that a working agreement with the BIU has not existed since the hotel resigned the HEB in November, 1987. Because it resigned during the life of the 1985-1988 agreement, it continued to abide by the agreement until it expired out of a "moral obligation''.

But from February, 1988, on the hotel followed the collective agreement merely as a "guideline'' and employees worked under individual contracts -- until November of 1991 when the new contract was introduced.

Mr. Simmons attacked the new contract saying it was "forced on employees''.

"He (Mr. Robinson) wants things his way,'' Mr. Simmons said, comparing him to Frank Sinatra. "We cannot have this industry disserved by this type of person.'' Mr. Simmons said he accepted collective bargaining agreements are not enforceable by law. However, he said they are "gentleman's agreements'' which employers must simply be bound by.

Indicating employers who enter into such agreements are tied to them for life, he said: "This is simply a case of Grotto Bay trying to get from under what has been the custom and practice all along.'' It is the BIU's position that collective agreements are for life unless properly terminated. It is also the union's position that the three months notice the agreement requires is not enough to throw out such an agreement that has been followed for years.

Mr. Simmons said an employer does not have to be a party or signatory to a collective agreement to agree to it.

"An agreement can be something that has developed out of custom and practice,'' he said.

And according to BIU secretary Ms Molly Burgess: "You can't just get rid of us because you want to. Once an agreement is in place it's always in place.'' In concluding Mr. Simmons invited the board to find a collective agreement does exist at the hotel and "unfair industrial practice'' was committed by management in failing to follow the grievance procedure as outlined in the agreement.

He called on the board to hand down a harsh enough "remedy'' so the hotel will not "run off'' and treat the hearing "with the same contempt'' it treated Prof. Haughton's.

Next week the board will hear arguments over whether three of the hotel's employees were unfairly dismissed. It will then retire to review the evidence.