1981 general strike.

It may be true that the workers of the day needed to catch up in wages and benefits, especially in the hospitals where the dispute began.

And it also may be that some aspects of the negotiations were mishandled by Government and the authorities. What is certain is that the strike sowed the seeds for the decline of the tourism industry and set off a long period of poor labour relations -- across all the sectors -- which exacerbated the problem.

It may well be that tourism's decline could have been turned around and there were other factors which caused the 20-year slump.

Indeed, if Bermuda had the kind of good relations between the Bermuda Industrial Union and the Bermuda Hotel Association in the 1980s and early 1990s which exist now, the tourism industry might not be in its current miserable state.

But the fact is that it has taken a recognition on the part of both sides that the hotels are in a crisis which can only be resolved if everyone starts pulling in the same direction. The shame is that the crisis could have been averted if that had started years ago.

What will never be known is how many of the visitors who had to haul their bags across the Causeway and through picket lines after the hotels closed vowed that they would never return to Bermuda. Nor will it ever be known how many subsequently made the same vow when their hotels were closed, seemingly at the drop of a hat over some other dispute.

Eventually the union membership, if not the leadership, came to recognise the risks inherent in strike action, and when they were called out by the BIU in the early 1990s to support the Island-wide strike over Bermuda Forwarders, most remained at work.

If the 1981 General Strike marked the high water mark of Bermuda trade unionism, then the relative failure of the Bermuda Forwarders strike marked the beginning of the unions' decline and has in some ways brought about the more cordial working relationship that exists today. That is not to say that there will never be a strike, or that withdrawal of labour is not justified.

But if Bermuda is to be competitive and successful in the future, it must have labour relations where workers and employers work together in a relationship of trust and are not continually confronting each other.

It is to be hoped that the lessons learned from the 1981 General Strike remain learned. No industry "can be turned on and off'' at will. Secondly, "jaw jaw'' is better than "war war'' and talking through problems is better than confrontation. Finally, Bermuda can rarely afford the kind of brinkmanship which characterised the actions of both sides in 1981.

Former Premier Sir John Swan said on Monday that the strike may have been something Bermuda had to go through. That is debatable. But what is certain is that the Island should never forget the damage the 1981 strike caused, nor that a solution to almost all problems can be reached through open and honest dialogue.