between the hotels and the Bermuda Industrial Union. The issue is so clouded by any number of different disputes and the time it takes to reach any kind of solution that Bermudians need an explanation of exactly where we are and of the implications of the disputes for our future.

Understandably the Country is concerned that there might be a strike at Elbow Beach Hotel at a time when there is some hope of recovery from the worst recession since the 1930s.

The legal ins and outs of the disputes are complicated and difficult but there are some overall factors which seem clear.

A number of hotel properties have recognised that the Bermuda Industrial Union has been weakened by the need of its workers during a recession to keep the jobs they can find. That is the way any economy works in tough times. It is difficult to get people to strike when they know that a strike could lead to no jobs or when they know that a strike could seriously damage the economy on which they rely for their pay. Basically people want to work. The apparent lack of opposition from employees to the breakaways by the hotels may be due to the fact that the union continued to push for comparatively large wage increases in the last round of negotiations when job security was probably more important to the workers.

Some hotel properties, large and small, have used the effects of the recession to see if they can operate and be better off without representation by the BIU of their employees. That clearly could not have been considered in a time of full employment because it would have resulted in strikes at the hotels and in the general industry.

It remains to be seen if the employees will be better off working for these properties without BIU representation than they were with the collective clout of the BIU. That is something the defecting hotels would have to prove. The hotels have felt frustrated. There was little exchange of information because there was seldom much talk between the hotels and the BIU outside formal negotiations, which was a mistake on both sides, and there were a number of brief disruptive labour stoppages which the hotels felt were wrong when contract rules were in effect. Some of these properties are also angry at their own employer unions, notably the Hotel Employers of Bermuda, for differing reasons, some of which have to do with the costs of negotiating hotels-BIU contracts.

The BIU's overriding problems seem to stem from cash. The union unwisely put most of its reserves in low producing or non-productive real estate which cannot easily be sold to produce cash. Thus it has had to openly admit to being unable to meet the financial needs of its dues paying members who are hard hit by the recession. The BIU has been doubly hit. Its cash flow has declined as hotels, especially the Elbow Beach, stopped collecting union dues when they moved away from the BIU. It is a simple fact that many union members do not pay their dues if the dues are not "checked-off'' by the employers.

Clearly the BIU wants to be recognised at such places as Elbow Beach and Grotto Bay. Every hotel which succeeds in operating without the BIU weakens the BIU and the successful defection of a number of hotels could cause a stampede away from the union and the union needs the dues money.

The union and the employers used at least to talk to one another to a conclusion every few years during collective bargaining. Now the Essential Industries Disputes Board seems to have become a substitute for collective bargaining solutions because no one could negotiate the kind of agreement that Government and the blue collar workers have recently.

The essential industries process is long and expensive. It is also uncertain if it continues to hear the same issues over and over again and does not produce binding precedents.

The last thing the public wants is a strike in the hotels now. It is not clear if the union could get Elbow Beach workers out especially since hotel workers were very unenthusiastic about the Bermuda Forwarders strike last year.

The threat of a strike is itself defeating because people will begin to stay home. Indeed there may never be a strike when Elbow Beach becomes 70-percent full because, as soon as there is a strike threat, people will not come to fill the hotel.