city law firms, face varying arrangements with respect to compensation and their "lame duck'' period of employment.

News of the redundancies brought Government's Labour Relations Officer to the law firms for discussions.

That was confirmed by Hallett, Whitney & Patton partner, John Cooper, who will be a joint managing partner of the new firm, Cox, Hallett & Wilkinson, once the merger with Cox & Wilkinson is complete at the start of the new year.

Mr. Cooper expressed surprise that the Bermuda Industrial Union president, Derrick Burgess, saw fit to publicly criticise redundancy arrangements without contacting the firm.

But he dismissed complaints from Mr. Burgess that the staff being made redundant should have been better treated.

Mr. Burgess said on Friday of the six, "We'll try to make some representation for them. We don't have a collective bargaining agreement with those law firms. But we hope that the staff will meet with us and we will do what we can to assess the situation.

"We sympathise with the staff's position and we need to let people know what's going on in Bermuda, because these types of things are happening quite often.

"It's pathetic that after working for somebody for over ten to 15 years, your employer doesn't even come to meet with you and explain what is going on. You learn of your termination by opening a letter on your desk.

"Then, your redundancy pay is nothing compared to what unions get for their members.

"We would like to meet with all of the workers, and if they want us to make representations, we will assist them.

"The problems here are the callous way the staff have been treated, the inadequate amount of compensation and the foreign worker versus the non-Bermudian worker.'' Mr. Burgess said that five of the six made redundant were Bermudian and the sixth was a spouse of a Bermudian. He said all six people worked for Hallett, Whitney & Patton, and he wondered if non-Bermudian staff could have been dismissed, instead.

But he said, "If they had to go, they should have at least been compensated properly.'' Mr. Cooper said there was no issue of non-Bermudians versus Bermudians, but only matters relating to job functions that were no longer required. To suggest otherwise, he said, was outrageous.

He also said, "Some were being asked to leave at different points of time and accept different redundancy packages. It was difficult to speak to them without first defining what each and everyone of them are being given.

"So a fairly precise statement had to be given to each individual employee so they could sit down and consider exactly what is being proposed.

"Some of my partners spoke to some of the people. I was here all day and was quite happy to speak to them, if they wished to come in and see me. But it would not have been constructive to talk to the six as a group, and even less constructive to talk to the entire staff, as a group.'' Mr. Cooper said seasonal hotel workers work under an entirely different set of circumstances than city office workers and cannot be compared.

He said, "I'm not really going to guide myself by what's negotiated in the hotel industry or the civil service, or anything else.

"I've already had the Labour Relations Officer tell me he thinks something is appropriate and I told him I don't think that is so. It is certainly not the custom.'' Mr. Cooper said the break-up of another city law firm, Smith, Barnard & Diel would result in no redundancy benefits to staff, although on balance, they received a longer period of notice.

He said, "There is no custom or standard or anything else that exists and we certainly offered to all but two of the six, a redundancy package in addition to the notice.

"We had reason in two cases not to propose a specific redundancy benefit, but other things instead.'' BUSINESS BUC