Staff at the Bermuda Telephone Company say they are bearing the brunt of a manpower crisis after 31 people took early retirement earlier in the month.

And they singled out one manager for bullying tactics which they claim have led to around 60 grievances being filed.

BTC wouldn't be drawn on how many complaints they had received.

But a spokesperson said: "There are some complaints in the grievance process of the collective bargaining agreement.

"Some are being heard by an arbitrator but we have yet to hear what the results are.'' Staff claim night shift operators are being forced to work up to 13 days on the trot.

One said: "Normally you work seven days - Sunday to Sunday -and then have the Monday off. But we're being told to work on until the end of the second week before getting a day off.

"You need time to rest but we just don't get it. When we complain we're just told that we have no choice.

"When we want to book holiday we're told we can't.

"There's not enough staff. The people who retired haven't been replaced. Some of them asked to stay a little longer but the company wouldn't allow them to.

There's new people being recruited but there's not enough staff to train them.'' BTC admits it is short staffed but say nobody is forced to do shifts who does not want to.

However some holiday requests have had to be turned down in the current staffing crisis as numbers dipped below 400.

The spokesperson said: "We have had to deny some holiday requests but we try to accommodate people as much as possible -- everyone can't go at the same time.

"We are not aware that people taking early retirement had asked to stay on a bit longer.

"We are in the process of getting more staff - there are adverts in the paper. Staffing is always being reviewed.'' The staffer also claimed there were only two working instead of the required three on some night shifts.

"There should be two operators on overseas calls and one on 411 but often there's just one on each so when an overseas caller comes through and the operator is taking a break there's no one there to take the call.

"You could get a caller ringing in from Tokyo wanting to do $1 million deal and there's no-one to put them through.'' However BTC said there was no need to worry.

The spokesperson said: "We staff according to the workload. Between midnight and 7 a.m. there's a really low amount of calls.''