Employers have launched a massive lobbying campaign ahead of today?s crunch Senate vote in a bid to block the overtime bill.

Brakes were similarly applied to the controversial GPS/taxi dispatch bill in the Senate for the last two years running.

The independents ? Walwyn Hughes, Carol Ann Bassett, and Senate president Alf Oughton ? have remained tight-lipped on their opinions of the overtime bill, however. Bermuda Employers Council president William DeSilva Jr. said he did not know whether the campaign on the independents had paid off.

He said: ?I believe their phones have been ringing off the hook in the last couple of days, that would be my hunch.?

But he said he didn?t know which way the vote would go.

The Employment Amendment Act 2004 will make time-and-a-half pay mandatory for overtime and abolish the clause allowing an employer and employee to agree to opt out.

However if a better package already exists for the employee, that will override the Act while individual industries can opt out with the agreement of Government.

Bermuda Industrial Union president Derrick Burgess said he had not been lobbying in favour of the bill ? but it has his full backing.

?It?s the right thing to do to pass the bill to give overtime after 40 hours. I am talking about scheduled overtime ? if you want to schedule it then pay for it.?

He stressed the impact on workers? family lives and health from working long hours.

However chairman of the restaurants division of the Chamber of Commerce Philip Barnett said the law requiring employers to pay overtime will push up inflation and imperil businesses.

He said restaurants would simply keep hours at 40 and then staff would have to work at other venues to make up the overtime.

Mr. Barnett said a members? survey had shown wages made up 30 percent of the average costs of restaurants doing business while average net profits were 6.2 percent.

He said restaurant workers, who were mainly from overseas, were used to working long hours in the summer, saving hard and then heading home to be with their families for months and would not want a straight 40-hour week for 50 weeks of the year.

Overtime laws did not apply in the US for restaurants, said Mr. Barnett, and he said they were not applicable in a country with over-employment because it would lead to more imported labour.

Mr. Barnett, who is also president of the Hog Penny, Barracuda Grill and Pickled Onion, said he had not had one single application for around 30 jobs advertised last week for his chain.

However Mr. Burgess said locals were put off from applying because of low wages in the restaurant sector with some staff working for $4 an hour.

He said if employers needed so many extra hours worked, then they could afford to pay them. ?Everybody cries poverty,? he said, adding that employers who paid better got more motivated staff and thrived.

Also due to be debated today are the Customs Tariff Amendment (No. 2) Act, the Land Tax Amendment Act, the Rent Increases (Domestic Premises) Control Amendment Act, and the Maritime Marriage Amendment Act.

The Senate will not sit again until the Budget debate begins in February, Sen. Oughton said last night.