Bermuda Industrial Union, which has been in mediation since April, takes pressure off the hotels in what seems to be shaping up as a good summer for tourism. We have to note that the agreement has been reached without threat of disrupting tourism and that the terms are in line with other recent wage settlements. Hotels have been having a tough time financially and it is important not to place them in a position where more may close. Tourism has been undergoing a period if change and it needs time without disruption to reassure managements and to demonstrate that tourism can and will recover.

We firmly believe that Bermuda has to learn to settle its affairs and its disputes without disrupting expensive holidays and it is clear that any industrial action in the hotels at this difficult time would have been a disaster. Travel agents and the visitors they represent have too often been influenced against Bermuda by past industrial action.

It may be that Monitor's efforts to bring the hotels and the BIU together to their mutual benefit are having a beneficial effect and it may be that the new leadership of the Union knows that strikes in the hotels impact on the workers first. Whatever the case, there has been a settlement and the Union President, Derrick Burgess, is quoted as saying, "We also have agreed to meet again shortly to negotiate another two years. We will get the other two years in place by February 25, 1999.'' A great many people will wonder why Bermuda has a one year agreement for the first time ever. There are bound to be suggestions that the BIU has worked toward only one year, hoping that its friends in the Progressive Labour Party will come to power before next February. That would lead people to believe that the BIU expects the PLP to give it advantages it does not have right now.

If that is true and the PLP should come to power, it would have to be very careful not to be held to ransom by the BIU or to get in a position where the BIU was demanding advantages which might force hotel closures.

It is doubly important to Bermuda right now that any talks between the Hotel Employers of Bermuda and the BIU go smoothly. The first reason is to keep visitors happy and the second is not to do anything to disrupt the proposed new hotel in Hamilton or the complete restructuring of the old Club Med in St.

George's.

It is vitally important to get the hotels full so that there are no worker lay-offs and to work toward lengthening the visitor season which has been creeping down in recent years. Hotel workers need the work which comes with a long season and there should be a general effort to get them that work.