Fellow Bermudian and restaurant owner Walter Simmons has come out in defence of Chamber of Commerce president Phil Barnett over what he describes as a "personal attack" on his colleague.

The whole issue relates to a rebuttal by Bermuda Industrial Union's (BIU) chief union organiser George Scott and union organiser Louis Somner of comments made by Mr. Barnett, who said last month, that Bermuda has only got itself to blame for building a "culture of entitlement".

Mr. Scott and Mr. Somner, who said they were not representing the views of the BIU, claimed that they and many others had interpreted Mr. Barnett's comments as being specifically directed at black Bermudians and the only culture of entitlement was from those bringing in workers from outside the country to run their business and thus denying black Bermudians the chance to do those jobs.

Mr. Barnett said that his 45-plus Bermudian workforce were put out by Mr. Scott's estimates that 99 percent of Mr. Barnett's employees were non-Bermudians and invited him to meet up if he wanted to discuss the matter further.

"I would certainly put my hand out to Mr. Scott and if he wants to meet up with me and discuss the particulars of my business and I can certainly show him the Bermudians that work for me," he said.

"The top of my business is fully staffed by Bermudians and they felt belittled by these comments.

"Bermudians are Bermudians to me, and I do not make distinction on anything and the more that we don't make distinctions the better."

Mr. Simmons also hit back at the pair's comments, saying that they had got Mr. Barnett's standpoint all wrong on the matter.

"I am angry at the personal attack against one of my colleagues and fellow restaurateurs and because I know Philip Barnett personally and I know Philip to be an absolutely outstanding person that carries himself with absolute dignity and pride and profound fondness for this country," he said.

"You can tell that this guy truly loves this country and for somebody to make a personal attack on him and his business is completely unfounded nonsense."

Mr. Simmons said that he finds it difficult to recruit good qualified staff in the restaurant trade, having advertised more than the required amount of times and received, on average, zero to one applications for five positions, and contacted Government's labour office and the union for help, and therefore, has little other option but to look abroad just to stay in business.

"If he (Mr. Scott) wants to blame anybody, blame Immigration, don't blame us, because we have to go through a certain process," he said.

And he reckons that Mr. Barnett's comments have been mis-interpreted by Mr. Scott and Mr. Somner and that it is not an issue of racial background.

"I do agree with what Philip said, but everything has now become black and white. When Philip says Bermudian, he means Bermudian and not any racial make-up of any kind.

"I have known Philip for 10 years as a member of the Chamber of Commerce and I have never known him to talk of a black and white issue.

"The worst thing is that, because Philip is a white Bermudian, certain people look at him as if he is not a true Bermudian, but they look at me as a black Bermudian, but we are no different because of the colour of our skin.

"Philip is president of the Chamber of Commerce and runs three of the best restaurants on the Island because he has worked damned hard to get to where he is today."

Mr. Simmons, who owns Bouchee in Pembroke and the Rotisserie Grill in Smith's, went on to rebuff Mr. Scott's comments that Mr. Barnett's workforce was made up predominantly of non-Bermudians, claiming that 50 percent of his staff are Bermudian.

"I try every time to get Bermudians in here," he said.

"The single Bermudian that I have got in here we had to send to our other business, just so there was one in every part of the business.

"There was a local girl who came down here looking for a job and I said I would look at her application and get back to her, but she then went down the road to the Pickled Onion and Philip hired her on the spot. He said to me: 'If a Bermudian walks in your door and they are qualified and eager, then don't hesitate to hire them', and for anybody to doubt or say anything otherwise, then they are wrong.

"And, if George Scott thinks it is easy for us now to find people abroad, he is downright wrong — it has become increasingly hard to find people to come here, because why would they want to leave Canada with the strength Canadian dollar or Europe with the strength of the euro compared to the US dollar, and India, with fastest growing economy in the world?

"Why would they want to travel 10,000 miles around the world to come to Bermuda when they could earn almost as much where they are?"

And he called on Mr. Scott to come and try working in a restaurant and experience first hand the challenges restaurateurs face on a daily basis.

"George Scott needs to come and work in Philip's and my shoes and see the difficulties and challenges that we have dealing with Immigration, trying to pay our taxes and being good corporate citizens at the same time.

"We are no different from any other business in Bermuda in facing the challenges of trying to hire Bermudians.

"Every other country in the world wants what we have got and, like Philip said, we need to protect that — nobody else has the wealth, the economy and harmony that Bermuda has."