Dr. Benjamin Hooks was commenting on the impact of strike action in tourist destinations such as Bermuda.

"I've been to the British Virgin Islands, Jamaica and a lot of places, including in the United States, where tourism is strong and I don't know of anything that takes away the right of a worker to strike if that's how they really feel,'' Dr. Hooks said.

Workers in the tourism industry have to be happy, Dr. Hooks declared.

If not, the Country's customers would end up suffering.

"I've been in places where the workers are unhappy, and let me tell you, it's not a good feeling for the tourists,'' said Mr. Hooks, who has been invited to address unions throughout the world.

"If the workers are happy, tourism does well. Management can't prosper unless they bring along the work force with them.'' The workforce of the 20th Century would be one of "diversity, liberty, justice and fairness'', Dr. Hooks said.

And one of the biggest challenges of the 1990s, certainly in America where it was "the second biggest labour problem'', was discrimination based on sexual gender.

The recently retired executive director of the US National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) was addressing the union one day after hotel workers voted to strike next month unless Government holds a hearing into their tips and contract signing row with management.

Hoteliers worried the strike vote would harm the local tourism industry just as the season was getting underway.

Dr. Hooks said it was his first visit to Bermuda, a place he "always dreamed about''.

He hoped to learn more about the local labour situation during the three-day conference, which he will officially open today.

But his initial impression, was that the current labour dispute "will be settled''.

He later added: "It's unfortunate that sometimes we take things so far, only to do finally in the end what we could have done in the beginning.'' Dr. Hooks will also take part in a workers' rights panel discussion today and two work sessions tomorrow with union members and other guests who include representatives of Bahamian trade unions.

Dr. Hooks, acknowledging the trade union movement had suffered some decline, said one of the "tragedies'' of the movement was that the more you helped workers the less they wanted to come back and pay their union dues.

"The NAACP has benefited every black person, yet it's difficult to get dues from them,'' he commented.

Dues check-off was vital to a union's survival, he said.

Union members unfortunately too often had to pay for helping non-union members get such things as pay equity. Wage settlements reached by unions were often used as a benchmark by non-union companies, he said.

Workers had the right to organisation, collective bargaining -- and check-off of union dues, he said.

And he had never come across a labour union that was too strong, he added. Mr.

Hooks started out as a lawyer in Memphis and later became one of the south's first black judges after reconstruction.

He has served on the NAACP for more than 16 years.

He became executive director in 1977 after he resigned as the first black member of the Federal Communications Commission.

Dr. Hooks is also a pastor in the Baptist Church. And he serves on a number of educational and business boards, including as president of the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated.

He lives in Memphis with his wife and one daughter.

CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER Dr. Benjamin Hooks, left, and Bermuda Industrial Union president Mr. Ottiwell Simmons.