workers, handing them a slim 3.1 percent wage increase over two years.

About 37 BIU clerical, maintenance, and service station workers had been without a contract since last October.

Mr. Kenyetta Young, negotiator for the BIU staff agreement, said the deal which is retroactive to last October and will expire in October of 1994 reflects recent union setbacks.

"We're facing the fact that the hotels are just about running away from us,'' Mr. Young told The Royal Gazette . "We can't go and promise things that we might not be able to honour.'' But the small pay rise was not the reason negotiations took so long, he said.

Negotiators were busy with other matters, like a contract for the dockworkers, and disputes like Bermuda Forwarders and Grotto Bay, he said.

Asked if he would want to see the union contract set a trend in the hotel industry, Mr. Young said: "Every agreement is different.''