Local lawyer Julian Hall publicly called on Premier Alex Scott to instruct his attorneys to meet with Pro-Active and take a serious look at the issues before they spent one more penny on what he called an expensive, time-consuming and resource exhausting arbitration process.

Mr. Hall, who is the Bermuda Industrial Union?s consultant to Pro-Active Management Systems, was the guest speaker at Labour Day Celebrations yesterday and made the request publicly before a crowd of some 400 people, saying it was time for the Pro-Active/Berkeley nonsense to come to an end.

The firm is suing for wrongful termination from the school building contract in August, 2004 after being awarded the $68 million secondary school contract in 2001 ? with a completion date of September, 2003.

However, the firm was given a year?s extension and another $13 million in February, 2004 only to be sacked six months later with the building more than 80 percent complete ? according to both sides.

Mr. Hall told the crowd yesterday that all the parties had agreed ?not to go public and make a lot of noise?.

But he said if the Premier had read the latest documentation he would have seen that he had set out clearly, concisely and fully every single aspect of the claim that is being made arising out of the Berkeley issue.

?He (Premier) will know by now from his lawyers that we have all the documents and all the evidence and legal expertise that we need and how ever long it takes ... the strategy of stretching this out until maybe the next election is not going to work,? he said.

Mr. Hall said the Premier should know that sooner or later the matter would have to be resolved.

?I?m calling upon you, in the presence of a few hundred witnesses, and I?m doing so intentionally. We can compromise this and bring the whole matter to reasonably speedy conclusion or it can get very, very messy ... it?s a matter for you,? he said.

Still on the subject of the new Berkeley school, Shadow Labour Minister Maxwell Burgess told the crowd earlier that the new Berkeley school was the most ?criminal thing? he?d seen in 22 years. Mr. Burgess said the union was under pressure and arbitration was not the answer.

He appealed to Pro-Active and Government to get around the table and ?work it out?.

?You can?t tell me that it makes sense to spend $20 million more, when they could have taken that money and put in a trust fund for those students in tertiary education from the Berkeley Institute,? he said.

?What we ought to have been done was stuck with Pro-Active, got them to finish the job and if we really thought they couldn?t, they should have got around the table and worked it out.?

Mr. Burgess begged the Government and Pro-Active to get together and work it out.

?Failure to do so, does not bode well for unionism and labour, not does it bode well for Government,? he said.

?There are no real winners in the arbitration process.?