Edness opens Government's fifth annual labour relations seminar at the Princess Hotel this morning.

"We are not going to be there,'' Bermuda Industrial Union President Derrick Burgess yesterday told The Royal Gazette . "It's not a boycott, we've simply got nothing to say to people who can't live up to their own rules.'' At the root of the problem, said the BIU chief, was the failure of Government to sign a 1995 arbitration agreement between the union and small hotel operations.

And what is particularly insulting, he added, is that a Government-run, publically funded operation such as Stonington Beach or the Reefs, which is owned by Tourism Minister David Dodwell, has yet to put its signature to the deal.

The agreement, negotiated under the 1991 Essential Industries Act, has been ratified and signed by the union and the Island's large hotel operators.

"But why should we go and sit with them (Government) and make it look like things are fine when they're not. We have always attended in the past but what's the point when Government won't abide by its own rules. "They should have a seminar own how they can honour their own committments,'' added Mr.

Burgess.

Pompano Beach Club, the Reefs, Stonington, Palmetto Bay, Coral Beach, Waterloo House, Newstead, and Ariel Sands have all failed to formalise their agreement with the union even though they are abiding by the terms of the arbitrated settlementm said Mr. Burgess.

"We're sick of talk,'' he added. "We're talking to ministers, on the phone.

We talked with David Saul who said he'd see what he could do, but that was over a month ago and still no word.

"What's the point of sitting there (at the seminar) when in the real world they can't even live up to their own agreements.'' The seminar, entitled "The Tripartite Parties in the areas of Employee Management Relations'', will be conducted by Professor Daniel Kruger of Michigan State University.

More than 60 people from all sectors of industrial and labour relations are expected to attend.