The Labour Minister yesterday rebuffed Princess Hotels boss Stephen Barker's plea not to consider making union recognition mandatory.

"He should not try to pressure me,'' Quinton Edness said. "He knows my role as Minister is to see that everybody is treated fairly and to try to guide this whole process to completion.'' Mr. Barker warned a move toward management collective bargaining would have serious implications, not only for other hotels, but for businesses in general.

Mr. Barker was speaking after some 100 managers at Southampton Princess indicated that they wanted collective bargaining under the Bermuda Industrial Union.

He warned that collective bargaining for management could scare off future hotel investors -- or even cripple a marginal operation already here.

And he said he had written to Mr. Edness, asking him not to take the position that an employer has "an obligation to recognise and engage in collective bargaining with a union as a bargaining agent for the employer's managers and supervisors, especially where the very same union represents employees who are to be supervised by those managers and supervisors.'' But when contacted yesterday, Mr. Edness said: "There's nothing to reconsider. Mr. Barker is wrong to say to me publicly about this obligation.

"I am not making any obligation. What is being considered by the Labour Advisory Council is the whole matter of union representation for a bargaining unit who wishes to have it.'' A coalition consisting of representatives of the BIU, Government, and Government agencies has been set up to consider the matter of mandatory union recognition.

The coalition will put together recommendations and, if necessary, Government would amend the law to achieve them.

Mr. Edness has stated if the law was passed, employers would have to recognise their employees' requests.

He noted that in the past most employers had recognised their employees' wishes, but recently there had been a few who had denied them.

A resolution to the problem would go a long way toward adding to the peace and tranquillity between workers and management, he added.

And he said: "Mr. Barker is wrong to write to me publicly on what I should and should not do when it is being considered in the forum that it should be considered.''